Someone in MK Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party on Thursday morning realized that, seeing as the country is most likely rolling down a slippery slope to new elections, Chairman Lapid must run for reelection in his own party.
According to the party’s constitution, founding father and incumbent chairman Yair Lapid must hold internal elections for office upon expiry of the 22nd Knesset. And last night, as Blue&White leader Benny Gantz gave up his mandate – she expired, or has moved much closer to its buy-date.
And so, within a few weeks the party must hold elections for the chairman’s job.
In democratic parties such as Likud or Labor, this discovery would have entailed long, needless meetings, energy-wasting debates, you know—democratic protocol. Not so in Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid – they made a couple of phone calls and announced: Lapid will continue to serve until the 25th Knesset.
Let’s unpack this.
Article 56 of the Constitution of the Yesh Atid Party states: “The founding chairman will serve until the end of the 22nd Knesset, or until he announces his resignation or until he is prevented from serving as party chairman, whichever comes first.”
“Upon termination of the founding chairman, elections for the party chairman will be held, as specified in these regulations,” says the party constitution, written back in 2013. “The founding chairman may present his candidacy in the election to the post of party chairman even after the end of his term.”
And so, based on the regulation that states Lapid is expected to serve until the end of the 22nd Knesset without being elected, and then run for his current job as an equal among equals opposite the members of the party he founded, Yesh Atid was compelled to organize those elections in early December.
But they won’t, naturally. Those primaries were cancelled even before they were announced. Lapid will continue to rule, as the party elders explained, “Due to the exceptional situation of repeat national elections and the absence of parliamentary action in the 21st and 22nd Knesset, along with the creation of the Blue&White party, it was decided that the term of MK Yair Lapid should be extended until the end of the 25th Knesset, inclusive. This is a technical procedure in light of the special circumstances.”
But of course.
In July of this year, Lapid warned that “if Bibi stays, we are on our way to a halachic state and the loss of democracy.”
The Democracy part Lapid has already snuffed out inside his own party. I wonder how he would go ahead and make Yesh Atid a halachic party now.