ABSTRACT
Democratization of the nominating procedure could have become an effective campaign issue in the month prior to the elections in November, 1988. This chapter describes the logic of the nomination processes within the two major parties (Likud and Labor) and some of the small parties. It explains why each of the competing parties needed to establish relevant positions on a political issue space, and to bring together diverse factions whose interests often conflicted. The smaller parties, especially the ultra-orthodox religious parties, which continued to select their candidates in the old autocratic fashion, increased their representation. Herut became a factionalized party, in which loyalty to a group leader took precedence over loyalty to an ideology. Herut and the Liberals formed the Gahal bloc for the 1965 elections; in 1973, Gahal became the Likud bloc. In 1988, Labor adopted a modified version of Herut's nominating process.
