A move worth millions: The reason Netanyahu wants to reserve a spot for Buskila

The Likud Central Committee is expected to vote today on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's request to allow him to reserve nine candidates on the party's list for the 26th Knesset. Netanyahu is asking to increase the quota of reserved spots in the realistic section from eight to nine, after deciding to add Deputy Foreign Minister MK Michel Buskila (Ha-Yamin Ha-Mamlakhti) to the list of reserved candidates.

According to the agreement signed at the end of 2024 between Likud and New Hope (now Ha-Yamin Ha-Mamlakhti), Netanyahu is entitled to reserve one or two candidates from the Ha-Yamin Ha-Mamlakhti faction on the Likud list. So far, he has announced the reservation for party chairman Gideon Sa'ar, and now he is asking to exercise the second reservation as well.

Political and economic considerations are in the background. MK Sharren Haskel resigned a few weeks ago from the position of Deputy Foreign Minister and requested to split from the Ha-Yamin Ha-Mamlakhti faction. For the Knesset Committee to approve a split, the signatures of at least one-third of the faction members are required. Since the faction has four Knesset members – Sa'ar, Ze'ev Elkin, Haskel, and Buskila – Haskel needs one more MK to split with her. Elkin is running in the Likud primaries, so Buskila is the only candidate for this.

According to sources in the Knesset, if Buskila splits with Haskel, the two will be able to transfer to a new party an election funding advance of about 2.936 million shekels, without the need for a bank guarantee. On the other hand, if the Knesset Committee, where the coalition has a majority, does not approve Haskel's split alone, Ha-Yamin Ha-Mamlakhti will continue to be considered a four-member faction for the purpose of calculating election funding.

Assuming the list will bring in only two Knesset members in the next elections – Sa'ar and Buskila – it will be entitled to election funding of 4.4 funding units, amounting to about 8.074 million shekels. Since Ha-Yamin Ha-Mamlakhti is running as part of the Likud list, in the event of a split, Ha-Yamin Ha-Mamlakhti will bring with it election funding of 6.2 million shekels, meaning the gap is 1.8 million shekels in favor of the joint list, a sum that will enter the Likud treasury.

Buskila was the head of the Likud movement in Ashkelon and served as a council member on behalf of the party between 2008-2022. In 2021, he moved to the New Hope party led by Sa'ar. Buskila refused to comment, stating that the matter is being handled by the Prime Minister and the chairman of Ha-Yamin Ha-Mamlakhti.