Cannabis an election issue in Israel
JERUSALEM :The Cinderella story of Israel’s current election campaign is a fringe party led by an ultranationalist libertarian with a criminal record who vows to legalise marijuana, and seems to diverge dramatically from the long list of quirky candidates of the past who have drawn attention to their improbable runs for parliament.
For starters, Moshe Feiglin’s Zehut party has a real shot of getting elected and could even emerge as a kingmaker in a tightly contested race for prime minister.
But his seemingly liberal civic platform, which has generated a strong hipster following, could be masking a far more polarising agenda.
Feiglin, who got pushed out of the ruling Likud party four years ago for his extreme right-wing positions, has taken the campaign by storm, putting cannabis high on the national agenda and forcing the front-runners to take a stand on the issue.
He’s also one of the few party leaders to refrain from endorsing either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or his top challenger, retired military chief Benny Gantz.
“We are in nobody’s pocket,” Feiglin told Israel’s Army Radio recently.
“Legalisation is the condition for us joining any government.”
The message seems to be catching on, ironically, in the first election in 20 years that the single-issue Green Leaf party has refrained from running.