The Israeli ruling party, Likud has announced that incumbentPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won a landslide victory in the primary,ensuring his leadership of the right-wing party in the national elections inMarch. The official results released by the Likud in the morningshowed that Netanyahu won 72.5 percent of the party members’ votes while hisrival Gideon Saar, a lawmaker of Likud, gained 27.5 percent of the votes. Netanyahu claimed victory, writing on Twitter: “Greatvictory!” In a broadcast statement, Saar congratulated Netanyahu forhis victory and said that he would support Netanyahu and the Likud in theup-coming national elections. Saar, a veteran politician and former education minister, iswidely seen as posing the hardest challenge yet to Netanyahu’s decades-longchairmanship of the Likud. The embattled Israeli leader is facing criminal indictmentsin three separate corruption scandals in which he is charged with bribery,fraud, and breach of trust. However, Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing and saysthe charges are part of “a witch-hunt.”