Deputy Interior Minister Faina Kirschenbaum announced Monday morning she is quitting the Yisrael Beiteinu party, in what might be a good move for party leader Avigdor Liberman.
Kirschenbaum is one of more than 30 suspects, a number of whom are associated with the Yisrael Beiteinu party, who are being questioned for money laundering, bribery and using funds illegally for personal aims.
She wanted to quit last week, but Liberman asked her to reconsider. Kirschenbaum said on Monday that she is leaving politics, partly in order to follow her lawyer’s advice to exercise her right of silence concerning the criminal charges.
Her exit completes the elimination of a quarter of the top MKs of Yisrael Beiteinu. Liberman, mostly through his own political devices, made his old top ministers feel unwanted.
One by one, Yitzchak Aharonovich, Uzi Landau and Dudu Rotem left the party. Liberman wasn’t counting on a bribery scandal, which had decimated his already poor showing in pre-election polls.
Except for a popular television journalist, and the very qualified Orly Levy-Abekasis, who is being wooed by the Likud, Liberman does not have any major attractions for the voters yet, but that might still change.