An individual close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that lawmakers were instructed to record their votes in the contentious election of the state comptroller, according to a recording aired on TV news on Friday.

“What do you mean? Everyone recorded themselves in Likud, that’s the only way we won. Very simple,” the individual said in the recording, which was manipulated by Channel 13 so as not to reveal their identity.

The person they are speaking to replies: “Everyone says ‘there is no directive,'” to which the source responded: “It’s a lie, there was a directive.”

A Likud lawmaker claimed on Thursday that they had filmed the vote, meant to be a secret ballot, of their own “free choice.”

Lawmakers voted 61-57 on Wednesday to elect Netanyahu’s personal lawyer, Michael Rabello, as state comptroller in a controversial do-over vote marred by accusations that illegal pressure on Likud MKs to record their votes and prove they hadn’t turned on the premier tainted the election.

Retired Supreme Court justice Yosef Elron had come out ahead in the first round, falling just one vote short of the 61 votes needed for victory in the 120-member parliament, meaning that several coalition lawmakers had voted for Elron, defying pressure to vote for Rabello.

The Knesset’s legal adviser Sagit Afik issued a legal opinion Thursday night........

© The Times of Israel