The Centre Party

Abstract

The Centre Party Efraim Torgovnik This article analyses the rise and fall of the hopes of a group of salient political leaders to capture the post of prime minister under the new 321system of direct popular elections. The Centre party emerged ad hoc in response to the negative political environment created by then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the first prime minister elected under the new system, who had failed to maintain his coalition. The article focuses on the changing social and political conditions that emerged on the eve of the 1999 elections, and the response of the leaders of the new Centre party, who were public figures from various parties, notably Netanyahu’s own Likud party. The Centre party believed it had a great opportunity to capture the post of prime minister because of Netanyahu’s waning political support. The party’s candidate, Yitzhak Mordechai, argued that he was better able to defeat Netanyahu than Ehud Barak of the Labor party, but while he had received strong initial support in public opinion polls, this began to wane as the national elections approached, and Mordechai withdrew his candidacy just before the elections.