Labor cancels affirmative action

The Labor party has traditionally held a number of reserved spots on their knesset list. There were regional spots so people from the north or south could get in, places for representatives of kibbutzim and moshavim, probably some places for women and all that. Shelly, the leader of the party asked the central committee yesterday to remove the regional and sectorial reserved spots. She added some more spots for women and lowered the Arabs from 2 reserved spots to 1. I am a bit confused as to why a party whose leader is a woman needs affirmative action for women. They have already made it.
One of the given reasons for this change was an example of a reserved spot was filled by someone who got 1300 votes, meaning he had no real support in the party, and then switched parties and took the seat to Kadima.
I find it very interesting that the more "liberal" party is removing the affirmative action, while the conservative parties are adding it in.

I can understand sectorial reserved spots as a marketing ploy to draw in more members of that sector. If there is an arab MK who actually does something for his community, the odds are there will be more Arab voters for the party in the next Knesset race. Reserving spots for candidates in the perifery, acknowledges that central living politicians don't have a clue as to what is actually going on in the far reaches of the country and they need representation.
On the other hand, the candidate from the perifery should be able to convince his regional neighbors to vote for him because he has their best interests at heart. If they all vote for him, he will have a realistic spot on the list. If they don't care about perifery issues, then why should the party basically force them to care.

In any case, I see Labor growing slightly in strength during this election at the expense of Kadima, which should pretty much drop from the political arena. They are certainly not going to be a powerhouse as they once were and not a serious contender.

It looks like Likud Beitenu, even if they lose a seat or 2 because of the merge, will still have the most seats by far and will be forming the next government.