Meretz-Yahad convention to attempt deposing party chairman Beilin

By Yulie Khromchenko and Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondents

An additional attempt to depose Meretz-Yahad Chairman Yossi Beilin will be carried out on Sunday evening at the party convention, to be opened in Ramat Efal. The party will decide whether to cancel the reservation of the first slot on the party's Knesset list for Beilin. According to the party constitution, the top slot on the party Knesset list is reserved for Beilin, and therefore the party elections are for the second slot onwards. Convention member Jonatahn Klinger's proposal to open Beilin's slot on the Knesset list to competition had been rejected by the convention presidency for procedural reasons, but on Sunday people behind the proposal are to appeal to the party court and demand an additional hearing on the issue.

Advertisement If the court accepts the appeal and cancels Beilin's top-slot reservation, a two-thirds majority of the convention members would be needed to depose him. A stormy debate is also expected on the issue of whether second-term lawmakers will have to win more than 60 percent of votes in internal elections to run for the Knesset this time around. According to the party constitution, Ran Cohen and Haim Oron will need 60 percent of the votes to be picked for the party Knesset list. Another issue on the table for Sunday is moving the reserved slot for an Arab representative on the Meretz list from seventh place to the fifth slot - this way, the Arab representative has a more realistic chance of serving as an MK.