Likud's internal primary was shaping up to be a chaotic affair by Monday afternoon. Only 34,262 members had voted so far, less than a quarter of the party's roughly 142,000 eligible voters, and already the accusations were flying.
Knesset Member Tally Gotliv claimed that some polling stations had fraudulent ballot forms with her name missing entirely. "Attention Likud voters! There are polling stations with forged forms without my name!!" she posted on social media. She tied the alleged sabotage to internal power struggles, calling for voters to report any stations using fake forms so they could be disqualified.
Transportation Minister Miri Regev had her own grievance. She told Radio 103FM that El Al, Israel's national airline, was working against her candidacy in retaliation for her push to bring budget carrier Wizz Air into the Israeli market. "El Al said clearly that because I want to bring Wizz, they issued a list to all their members saying they're going after me and won't give me their vote," Regev said. She described it as "extortion and threats."
Mneawhile, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox members showed up to polling stations, part of an estimated 7,000 Haredi voters registered in Likud. They came from Satmar, Vizhnitz, Gur, and Belz communities, alongside members from emergency response organizations and various congregations.
At a polling station in the largely Haredi city of Elad, local residents covered photographs of female candidates and began shouting. Likud activists were asked to leave the location for what organizers called "modesty reasons."
Former Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon voted in Haifa during the morning. Likud had been polling on cost-of-living issues and found Kahlon was the candidate most closely associated with that concern.
Minister Dudi Amsalem, voting at Jerusalem's Binyanei Ha'uma convention center, defended Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's involvement in the elections. When asked if Netanyahu had overstepped, Amsalem brushed off the question: "No, I'm not getting into that right now, we're on a holiday." He framed the whole event as a celebration of party democracy.
Polling stations were scheduled to close at 9 p.m., with votes to be counted after that.
