Barkat Setting Sights on Senior Ministry

Yerushalayim mayor Nir Barkat has told supporters that he did not become a Likud Party member in order to win election to the Knesset, but to become a senior minister.

In a tape of Barkat discussing his political ambitions at a closed rally, obtained by local media, the mayor revealed that he has not been devoting himself to enrolling members in Likud in order to get a Knesset seat. He has bigger things in mind:

“The Knesset doesn’t interest me,” he said. “I am interested in influential jobs. Is that okay? The Knesset is not my goal. Being a senior minister is what interests me at the height of my journey.”
Barkat listed the mayoralty as one of the five most exciting jobs in the country, along with prime minister, defense minister, finance minister and foreign minister. He hinted that he would only leave his current post for something more “exciting.”

That such ambitions become public knowledge may not faze Barkat, since the electorate is used to seeing politicians aspiring to higher office. But the tape also contained some remarks he would probably have preferred to be kept private.

Barkat mocked Likud ministers who only decided it was worthwhile to even talk with him after he signed up 1,500 to 2,000 new members for Likud. Suddenly, prominent figures like Haim Katz, Yisrael Katz and Gilad Erdan were acting like old friends.