To the political mix in the upcoming Knesset elections, add the name of Moshe Kachlon, the outgoing Communications Minister who just last week announced that he was leaving the government, the Knesset, and politics. A poll taken by a group of “concerned citizens” that was handed to Kachlon Tuesday showed that if the former minister were to start his own party with a platform centered on social issues, the party he headed would get 20 Knesset seats.
Reports Tuesday said that heavy pressure by unidentified groups was being placed on Kachlon to declare his candidacy. However, in a statement, a spokesperson for Kachlon said that the minister was “unaware of any movement to draft him into a separate political party.” Kachlon had made up his mind, and was not planning to change it.
Likud insiders speculated that the story was being blown up out of proportion by the media, which was desperate to find a chink in the armor of the seemingly politically invincible Binyamin Netanyahu. “Yesterday, before the Likud Central Committee meeting, the media reported the entire day that most of the Likud was against the union with Yisrael Beytenu, and that hundreds, if not thousands, had signed petitions against it. Then it turned out that the proposal for a unified list passed in the Committee by a landslide. Today they are coming up with this Kachlon story, supposedly to capitalize on his popularity,” sources in the party said.
As Communications Minister, Kachlon was responsible for some wide-ranging changes in thr communications market, including the establishment of the competing cellphone companies that helped drive down the price of cellphone service.