Shaffir said she would do everything possible to unite Labor, Meretz, the Green Party and former prime minister Ehud Barak's allies by the January 15 deadline.
By GIL HOFFMANStav Shaffir votes, September 17, 2019(photo credit: STAV SHAFFIR/CHAIM BERGIG)
Green Party leader Stav Shaffir offered over the weekend to give up her second slot on the united Democratic Union list to former Meretz MK Esawi Frej, to ensure that the list would represent a partnership of Jews and Arabs.Shaffir presented the idea at a meeting of Meretz and Green Party officials at the United Kibbutz Movement headquarters in Tel Aviv on Sunday. She also called for open primaries for the top slot on the list and freezing the rest of the list, as it was in the September 17 election.“I presented a series of solutions that were met with silence,” Shaffir wrote in a Facebook post over the weekend. “The public is frustrated by us not understanding that we need to unite and [is] sick of parties that are stuck in internal conflicts.”Shaffir said she would do everything possible to unite Labor, Meretz, the Green Party and former prime minister Ehud Barak’s allies by the January 15 deadline. To that end, Shaffir and former MK Yael Cohen Paran represented the Green Party in the meeting with Meretz MK Tamar Zandberg and former MK Mossi Raz.“The meeting was important and interesting, and we made progress,” Raz said. “I believe we will solve the problem.”Meretz officials have not given Shaffir a final answer yet on what they are proposing. They were expected to meet again soon to continue negotiations.“As of now, Meretz is stopping its agreement that led to the Democratic Union,” Shaffir said. “We are waiting for Meretz’s decisions.”
