BICOM

The State Comptroller yesterday issued a report on spending during political party primaries prior to March’s general election. It found a number of irregularities, most seriously regarding controversial Likud MK Oren Hazan.

Those MKs who were found to have overspent the permitted amount of campaign funding included Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett, former-Likud MK Moshe Feiglin and Zionist Union MK Erel Margalit. All were handed fines.

However, the most serious finding of the report concerns Hazan, who submitted an affidavit to the State Comptroller saying that he had spent no money on his primary campaign other than the registration fee. When found to be untrue, Hazan claimed he was unaware of the requirement to declare expenses covered by donations. The report says, “Filing an affidavit that is untrue, as the candidate did, is a criminal offence.”

The possibility of legal proceedings comes just a week after Hazan was roundly criticised by Knesset members for appearing to mock the disability of Yesh Atid MK Karin Elharar, who suffers from muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair. The Knesset’s Ethics Committee yesterday suspended Hazan from all Knesset plenary and committee meetings for a month. Shortly after his election in March, Channel Two published claims that Hazan had previously hired out prostitutes while running a bar in Bulgaria where had openly used drugs.

Meanwhile, Jewish Home MK Yinon Magal resigned from the Knesset earlier this week after four former-colleagues at the Walla news site accused him of sexual harassment. He said that he had done nothing illegal and pledged to improve his behaviour. Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett called Magal’s resignation a “fitting action.”

It was also announced this week that former-Labour Party leader and ex-Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer has been indicted for bribery, money-laundering, fraud, breach of public trust and tax offences. The alleged offences took place in part while in office. Ben Eliezer is accused of having accepted bribes to further business interests and laundering the cash in real estate.