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May 20, 2005/Iyar 11 5765, Volume 57, No. 38
Labor faces key leadership ballot
LESLIE SUSSER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - After a new membership drive that almost trebled its ranks, Israel's Labor Party is gearing up for a crucial leadership race that will decide its ideological direction for the next few years - and, to a large extent, whether it can mount a serious challenge for national power.
The outcome of the Labor leadership primary, set for June 28, also could determine how long Labor remains in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's coalition government. Most candidates are bent on leaving the government right after the planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank this summer, but incumbent party leader Shimon Peres, who at 81 is still the front-runner, is prepared to remain in the coalition indefinitely.
Some Labor candidates are seeking a brief postponement of the vote to give them more time to garner support, but a delay of a few weeks or even months will not change the big picture: Labor and Likud, now in a coalition, soon will be working against each other in the run-up to national elections scheduled for November 2006 but widely expected to take place at least five months earlier.
The five Labor leadership candidates are former prime ministers Peres and Ehud Barak; Histadrut labor federation boss Amir Peretz; Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, a former defense minister and party chairman; and Matan Vilnai, a minister without portfolio and the army's former deputy chief of staff.
Peres, the most popular and experienced candidate, is least likely to make radical ideological or structural changes. Polls show he fares the best of any candidate in a race against Sharon's Likud, raising Labor's projected total in the Knesset from its current 21 seats to at least 25.
But Peres has a "loser"' image when it comes to national elections - he has lost four times - and many of Labor's younger generation suggest it's time for sweeping changes to make the party more relevant.
Barak, 63, says Labor needs a tough leader able to stand up to Sharon, the Likud and the Arabs, and he's the man. Over the past few months he has been trying to cultivate the strongman image.
But no one rouses as much antagonism as Barak inside Labor: Many party members resent him for his inability to admit mistakes, for his cavalier treatment of people close to him, and most of all, for his failure to deliver when he served as prime minister from 1999 to 2001.
Peretz, 53, is deliberately targeting Barak. If the former prime minister is returned as Labor's head, there would be little difference between Labor and Likud, says Peretz, arguing that Barak is as conservative on economic policy as Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud.
Vilnai, 62, son of a renowned Israeli geographer, is a bluff, honest soldier in the Yitzhak Rabin mold, with the same heavy delivery as Rabin but without the late prime minister's analytical brilliance. Vilnai has surveys showing that Labor under his leadership would win almost as many seats as under Peres.
Ben-Eliezer, 69, is considered as hawkish as Barak on the peace process, with Vilnai in the center and Peres and Peretz more dovish. Trailing badly in early polls, Ben-Eliezer says he'll nevertheless be the surprise in the leadership race.
And well he might be: In the membership drive that closed May 15, Ben-Eliezer brought in 36,000 new members, 8,000 more than Peretz and more than twice as many as Peres, Barak and Vilnai.
Moreover, polls that show Peres in the lead, followed by Vilnai, Barak, Peretz and Ben-Eliezer, were conducted among the old party membership of 48,000. Critics say only surveys of the 130,000 or so newly recruited members will give an accurate reflection of the balance of power in the party.
Labor is due to hold a convention next week to approve the membership register, finalize election rules and decide whether or not to defer the June 28 election date.
There's one other key issue on the agenda: Barak's people have challenged Peretz's right to run, arguing his One Nation party, which recently returned to the Labor fold, has not yet fully merged with Labor.
According to party rules, to win a leadership race a candidate must poll over 40 percent of the overall vote. With five candidates in the field, no one is likely to win so many votes on the first ballot, and the two leading candidates would face a run-off two weeks later.
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