Israeli PM wins internal elections in Likud party

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will continue to lead his right-wing Likud party, according to initial results of the party's internal elections held Wednesday.

Knesset (parliament) member Danny Danon, who served as the party's central committee chairman, and was the only one who challenged Netanyahu's leadership and ran opposite him, conceded his loss on Wednesday night.

"The apparent results show that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had won the internal elections," Dannon told reporters at Tel Aviv's Fairground Convention Center, where the party's control center was located.

"I wish him luck and will call to congratulate him and together we will work to win in the national elections on March 17," he added.

Fifty-five percent of the party's 96,651 registered members cast their votes throughout the day deciding the makeup of the Likud party's list prior to the upcoming elections.

The makeup of the list is set to be published Thursday morning. Political pundits estimated that the party's list would be more right wing than before.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recently taken more hardline stance on several national issues, apparently in order to win the votes of the party's far-right constituency in the primary elections.

Now that Netanyahu had passed this hurdle, he will face off against former Justice Minister Tzipi Livni (Hatnua) and MK Yitzhak Herzog (Labor), who have formed a joint center-left list, and from the right he will face against the nationalist, settler-backed Jewish Home party, headed by Naftali Bennett.

Recent polls are showing a slight advantage for Livni and Herzog over Netanyahu's Likud party (23-21 seats in the Knesset, out of 120) and Bennett is set to head the third biggest party with a forecasted result of 17 seats.

The elections will take place on March 17. After the results come out, the Israeli President Reuven Riviln will decide which politician should form a government.

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