 An early poll showed that the prime minister would lose to Gideon Sa'ar in the primary; so, Netanyahu asked the Likud Central Committee to move up the 6 January date to 31 December, to make sure that Sa'ar didn't have the time to mount a campaign.Sa'ar objected to the proposal.The motion was put to the 3,000 member central committee, who voted in a mini-referendum via secret ballot at ten polling stations throughout the country on 10 December 2014.