As Israeli President Shimon Peres’ term in office will come to an end this summer, the Speaker of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, Yuli Edelstein, will meet this week the various candidates to succeed the 90-year-old statesman and is expected to announce a date for the vote next week.
The President is elected by the Knesset’s 120 members and each candidate must receive the endorsement of 10 Members.
Former Knesset speaker Moshe Rivlin (Likud), Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor) and Meir Sheetrit (Hatnua), Nobel Prize winner Dan Shechtman, retired Supreme Court justice Dalia Dorner, green energy entrepreneur Yosef Abramowitz and Dr.Yehuda David have announced they are running, plus several others are considering joining the race. Likud Minister Silvan Shalom is expected to decide imminently on his potential candidacy, after allegations of sexual misconduct against him were dropped by the state prosecutor.
Most public opinion polls show Rivlin is the preferred candidate of the public. But the vote itself is held in a secret ballot among parliament’s 120 members, adding to the unpredictable nature of the race.
Officially, the president has only two primary powers: assigning a potential Prime Minister to build a coalition government after elections and issuing pardons to criminals.
But Shimon Peres, a two-time former Prime Minister, has risen above the post.
He restored honor to the presidency after replacing the disgraced Moshe Katsav, forced to resign in a sex scandal and later convicted of rape in 2007. Peres quickly became the country’s most popular political figure, finally basking in the public adoration that eluded him for most of his lengthy career.
He also became a de facto Foreign Minister who promoted Israel abroad thanks to his wide network of global contacts, presenting a respectable face for the country when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was often under fire for its West Bank settlement policies. He offered a bridge to the Arab world and was greeted like royalty in Europe and Washington, where President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“Besides the fact that in my eyes he represents the story of the state of Israel, he rehabilitated the presidency and turned it into a lighthouse, both inwards and outwards,” said Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, one of the contenders for Peres’ job.
Ben-Eliezer is a former Defense Minister and one-time head of the Labor Party — another position Peres once held.