Former minister Eli Yishai, head of the Yachad - Ha'am Itanu party and former Shas chairman, sharply criticized current Shas head Aryeh Deri on Sunday night over his intentions to quit his role as Economics Minister.
Deri made the decision to quit the ministry due to his refusal to sign the recent gas plan and go around the Antitrust commissioner's authority.
Referencing Deri's campaign promises to fight for the "transparent" poorer people, Yishai told Channel 10: "if I'm for the 'transparents' then I sit there and don't pass the gas plan, and I don't give up on my authorities."
"If I'm for the tycoons, then sign. You don't leave a ministry, it isn't the selling of chametz (on Passover - ed.) that you pass it to someone else to do the dirty work," he continued.
Condemning his rival for not fulfilling his promises, Yishai said, "this government has already existed for half a year, I haven't seen 0% VAT on basic goods. I haven't seen child stipends. What do you say to all those hungry children who don't have anything to eat day in and day out at school?"
Yishai's Yachad party, which ran a joint list with Otzma Yehudit, just missed out of the last election by around 10,000 votes. Shas activists were revealed to have conducted a massive voter fraud campaign against Yachad in the elections, subtly invalidating Yachad voting slips to steal the democratic rights of the party's voters nationwide.
"I don't speak about the fraud that Deri did at the ballot boxes anymore. In one of the broadcasts he said '7:0,' listen, I see seven mandates and zero work," he said.
The seven mandates Shas received was in fact a great setback from the 11 seats it previously had. Yachad fell just short of the recently raised 3.25% threshold percentage, and if they passed it they would have received four mandates.
In response to Yishai's comments, Deri's office issued a statement saying: "these are a heap of lies and we're saddened that Eli Yishai continues to libel the Shas movement and its leader even after being defeated in elections. Minister Deri will continue to act for the weaker populations and for the general public in Israel, and will repair the great destruction that Eli Yishai left in the Shas movement."