Six candidates may run for president in a secret ballot in the Knesset next month. If this assessment comes true, it would be the largest number of candidates since the founding of the state to run for the position.
The elections will be held during the month of June, with the exact date to be announced next week by Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein. The estimates in the Knesset are that the two candidates who will gain the broadest support are MK Reuven Rivlin and MK Binyamin Ben-Eliezer.
At the same time, the investigation on the program "Uvda" that revealed that MK Ben Eliezer held membership cards at two casinos in London, and the reports that he will have to undergo kidney transplant surgery, as well as his admission in an interview on the program "Shish" with Oded Ben Ami on Channel 2, that he himself paid for private investigators, but that he did not use them - could harm the scope of his support.
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In addition to Rivlin and Ben-Eliezer, MK Meir Sheetrit, former Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik, Nobel Prize laureate Prof. Dan Shechtman, and Press Council President Judge Dalia Dorner intend to present their candidacies. It is not yet clear whether Minister Silvan Shalom, whose case was closed today, will also run.
The newspaper Israel Today It is reported that last night rumors spread that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman suggested to the rabbi of Migdal HaEmek, the rabbi Yitzhak David Grossman, that he present his candidacy for president - and assured him of his support.
Minister Lieberman denied it.
Rabbi Grossman told Israel Hayom that the matter "did not exist and was not created. None of the politicians spoke to me. The educational institutions of Migdal Or are my life's work, and I have no intention of giving it up.".
Poll: Rivlin leads
It should be noted that according to a survey by the Gutman Center of the Israel Democracy Institute - conducted in April, MK Rivlin leads by a significant margin over the other candidates - with 271% support, followed by Prof. Dan Shechtman with 111% support, MK Binyamin (Fuad) Ben-Eliezer with 101% support, retired court judge Dalia Dorner with 81% support, and MK Meir Sheetrit with 61% support.
The most striking finding in the survey is that a significant portion of the public (38%) does not know or refuses to answer the question. The proportion of Arabs who responded that they do not know or did not want to answer is particularly high, at 76% of them. Younger respondents were also more likely to say "don't know" or refuse to answer the question compared to people who belonged to older age groups.
Among the Jews, the leading candidate is MK Rivlin (32%), while among the Arabs, the leading candidate is MK Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (11%). In addition, Rivlin enjoys particularly high support among the religious (67%), Dan Shechtman enjoys relatively high support among the secular (20%), and Dalia Dorner also enjoys relatively high support among the secular (12%). Meir Sheetrit enjoys relatively high support among the religious traditionalists and the non-religious traditionalists (10%, and 14% support, respectively).
