Tel-Chai Nation

Okay, tonight, the results so far are in for the Likud primaries, and it looks like Benjamin Netanyahu's won by a 15 percent margin over Silvan Shalom for chairmanship.

Former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is the next leader of the Likud, a poll commissioned by Israel Radio revealed on Monday evening, minutes after voting stations in the Likud primary race shut their gates.

According to the poll, Netanyahu received 47 percent of the vote. His main competitor Silvan Shalom won the support of only 32% of voters. Likud activist Moshe Feiglin, the poll found, received 15% of the vote while Minister Yisrael Katz got 6%.

The poll, conducted by Professor Yitzhak Katz from Ma'agar Mohot, was a telephone survey of Likud voters who said they had voted.

Professor Katz was the only expert who predicated the victory of Amir Peretz over Shimon Peres in the Labor primary race.

To comment on that part, I'd figure it's mostly because, at Peres's age, who would consider him a viable candidate for prime minister, any more than they would Ariel Sharon, who's still in the hospital now?

On related news, Yisrael Katz (not the same as Prof. Katz) said that the Likud would endure defections by some senior members to Kadima:

(IsraelNN.com) Likud leadership candidate Minister Yisrael Katz earlier on Monday night visited a Be’er Sheva polling station. He told reporters that he is confident the party is strong enough to overcome the recent defection of a number of senior party members to launch Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Kadima Party.

Katz added he is confident Likud will overcome concerns that many former Likud members will vote for Kadima in the upcoming election for the 17th Knesset.

Well if you ask me, the defection of the defectors, as I once noted before, is decidedly for the best. After all, considering the amount of corruption that Sharon and sons were responsible for, and even Ehud Olmert and Tsahi Hanegbi, that's exactly why their leaving helps the Likud by freeing itself of much of the corruption that the former members who're now with Kadima brought upon the Likud in the yesteryear.

To rehabilitate the Likud, it's important to rid itself of any corruption that could be plaguing it, and with the defection of those who did, that certainly helps.

UPDATE: final figures show that Netanyahu's got 44.4% and Shalom 33.1%, while the other two Feiglin and Katz, have 12.4% and 8.7%, respectively.

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