A majority of the conference votes of Habayit Hayehudi’s center members approved the amendments to the party’s constitution requested by the chairman, Education Minister Naftali Bennett this weekend, Srugim reported Sunday morning. The amendments include one additional chairmen-appointed Knesset nominee on the Party’s Knesset list’s first 10 slots; increasing the number of Presidium members; allowing the chairman of the party to make decisions regarding quitting the coalition government; as well as a number of changes in calling for meetings of the center’s members.
This means that, should the party retain its current power in the House, two out of the eight MKs would be directly loyal to Chairman Bennett.
This approval came after a previous vote count had shown that only 62% of the center’s members were present, while the majority required for instituting changes is 65%.
In the second ballot, 282 Central Committee members, who constitute over 65% of the total number of members, were present for the vote, and gave their approval to the changes. 143 opposed, abstained, or ignored the second ballot.
Last Sunday, the Habayit Hayehudi conference was convened and approved the changes, which the leadership suggested were needed “to boost the power of the party and all of religious Zionism in the next elections.”
But a number of complaints were received from central committee members, according to which their vote was not counted, or counted but was recorded incorrectly, and so it was decided to confirm the results a second time, with the necessary quorum. To that end, over last week, the party conducted an individual telephone verification using an independent company. This was done with the approval of the party’s legal advisor.
The party wished to clarify that this was not a new vote, but a thorough verification of the votes that had already been cast. The party issued a statement saying: “The Jewish Home will continue to work for the people of Israel and the State of Israel, as it has done so far.”