Former minister Dan Meridor said in a television interview Thursday that he will be "in no hurry" to vote Likud in the next elections if the party becomes too "right-wing and extremist" for his tastes.
The former minister and longtime MK, who failed to get himself reelected in Likud's latest primaries and found himself out of the 19th Knesset, told Channel 10 that the party has been ideologically transformed.
"It is a fact that whoever fought for values of human rights and democracy found himself outside," he said. "This is a change of direction." He noted that Benny Begin and Michael Eitan also failed in the primaries.
"The political result of the attempt to create a more right wing and bellicose Likud was that the Right lost votes," Meridor said. "I hope that this does not become a historical trend that sees the party turning from a leadership movement to a radical right wing movement."
Meridor's analysis does not jibe with the more widely accepted analysis of the election results, according to which it was Likud's attacks on Bayit Yehudi that weakened the Right – not extremism on the part of Likud.