Yitzhak Rabin appears to have beaten incumbent Labor Party leader Shimon Peres in Israel’s first U.S.-style primary election, according to unofficial returns.
At stake in Wednesday’s vote was the leadership of Labor and the possibility of becoming Israel’s next prime minister.
For the first time, the decision rested with some 150,000 registered members of the Labor Party across the country. In the past, the Central Committee selected the party leader.
The race pitted two old Labor Party rivals against each other, along with two younger challengers. With 75 percent of the ballots counted, challenger Rabin had won 39.78 percent of the votes, compared with 34.68 percent for Peres.
An unofficial final count gave Rabin a 40.59 percent share of the vote and Peres 34.48 percent. If confirmed, that would put Rabin over the 40 percent minimum needed to clinch the race and avoid a runoff election.
The two other challengers for party leadership were well behind the veterans, according to the earlier vote count.
Yisrael Kessar, secretary-general of the Histadrut, was polling 19.86 percent, an unexpectedly strong showing for him. Knesset member Ora Namir trailed with 5.42 percent.
The polls closed Wednesday at 9 p.m. local time, but the official results were not expected to be released until later Thursday.
If only because of their novelty, the primary-type elections, which were preceded by weeks of hard campaigning, should have generated more than usual voter interest. The drama was increased by the choice between two veteran leaders and two members of a much younger generation of Laborites aspiring to displace them.
NO VOTING IN KIRYAT SHMONA
The dovish and professorial Peres was pitted against the hawkish Rabin.
Both are former prime ministers, both are former defense ministers and both are nearing their 70th birthdays. But whatever they hold in common has not eased their bitter rivalry over the years, political and personal.
Of their two younger challengers, Kessar has a formidable power base in Israel’s all-embracing trade union federation, which predates the state.
Namir is one of only two women in the Labor Party’s 39-member Knesset delegation. But she chairs the Knesset’s Labor and Welfare Committee, which puts her in close touch with Labor rank and file.
But even with four candidates and a race less predictable than usual, a goodly number of eligible voters seemed to have selected a fifth option: staying home.
The voting got off to a sluggish start after the 750-odd polling stations around the country opened at 2 p.m. local time.
They did not open at all for the 500 registered Labor members in Kiryat Shmona, a border town in the Upper Galilee panhandle where Katyusha rocket fire from southern Lebanon has become a serious security problem in recent days.
Kibbutzim in the region, however, went ahead with the voting as planned.
The four candidates campaigned until the very last moment, traveling the country in cars and minibuses.
The party imposed restrictions on the number of campaign aides allowed, in order to maintain a level field between Knesset member Namir and Kessar, who had the huge resources of the Histadrut to call on.
Rabin, a two-pack-a-day man who stopped smoking this week when he lost his voice after countless “whistle-stop” speeches, handed out throat lozenges to journalists and supporters.
Rabin, who served as prime minister from 1974 to 1977, had a direct message: Labor’s chances of winning the elections June 23 would be improved significantly if he headed its list.
Opinion polls bear Rabin out. He is more popular than Peres with the public at large.
Peres’ message has been that he is the best man for the job of prime minister. His last stint at it, from 1984 to 1986, was an acknowledged success, he repeatedly pointed out.
He explained his weak showing in the polls on grounds that as leader of the Labor Party, he has been the focus of attack by Likud.
Namir’s campaign was aimed at beating Kessar “in his own backyard,” meaning among the factory workers, who are supposed to be the backbone of the trade union movement.
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