MKs Eli Aflalo, Ronit Tirosh, Shai Hermesh, Otniel Schneller, Aryeh Bibi and Yulia Shamalov Berkovich reportedly signed on to make the move from Tsippi Livni's Kadima party to Bibi Netanyahu's Likud with MK Ze'ev Boim and other Kadima legislators expected to join the move soon.
There are those who claim that each of the MKs who leave Kadima will become a minister, deputy minister or Knesset committee chairman, spurring calls for an investigation into possible bribery charges regarding the negotiated political move.
These rumors include Aflalo being appointed to be Negev and Galilee development minister, Tirosh as a minister in the Foreign Ministry, Boim taking on a ministry of Jerusalem and pensioners affairs, Shamalov Berkovich deputy communications minister, Bibi deputy internal security minister, Hermesh deputy agriculture minister, and Schneller chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
However, Shalom Shlomo, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political advisor said in a closed forum that there was no intent to secure posts at the Likud for Knesset members who quit Kadima. He noted that no such promise was made during the negotiations with the MKs
If anyone needed to be reminded of the similarity of such intra-party gerrymandering, note that former prime minister Ariel Sharon's sons, Gilad and Omri, reportedly called Kadima MKs and tried to persuade them to return to the Likud and leave the party that their father founded four years ago. Yet another bit of unfortunate foreshadowing for those who see striking similarities between PM Netanyahu's political behavior and PM Sharon's.
