Habayit Hayehudi members should not be upset about Bennet's choice of Eli Ohana

I don't have an opinion on whether giving former soccer star Eli Ohana a reserved spot on the Habayit Hayehudi list was a good decision or not. I know very little about him and his opinions, let alone his capabilities - basically only the little bit I have heard today.

I do have an opinion on something else though. That is, the complaints about Bennet having used a reserved slot for Ohana, rather than for one of the many worthy candidates in the recent primaries who failed to win realistic spots.

This may have been a lousy choice, and as I said I have no opinion about that, but the party gave the party leader, Naftali Bennet right now, the ability to do with those slots as he pleases.

As I see it, the purpose of giving the leader the right to offer x number of reserved spots is to give him some flexibility in putting people to his liking, people he thinks can draw in voters, people who have certain levels of influence that are attractive to the leader. The leaders ability to form the party representatives to his liking is limited. Primaries choose the representatives, not the leader. Reserved slots gives the leader a little bit of an ability to lead - to put in a small number of the people he wants. Even if the entire list would be selected against the wishes of the leader, he gets a couple people to his liking and choosing.

That is why I voted in the referendum of the recent Likud primaries to give the party leader, Netanyahu, the ability to offer two reserved slots to candidates of his choice. I think the party leader should have that limited ability.

Back to the reserved spots in Habayit Hayehudi...

If thoise other candidates, and they were all [probably] worthy candidates were not strong enough to attract enough votes from within the party membership, who says they would have had the ability to attract voters from without, in the general elections in march? Maybe Bennet believes that Eli Ohana, and whomever he offers the next slots to, will attract more voters than the amount Danny Dayan or Rav Ronski can.

Bennet might be wrong, and Eli Ohana might turn out to be a bad choice (or not), but the party members gave Bennet that choice to make. it is his gamble.

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