Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak today won the first round of the Israeli Labour Party's leadership election and will face an ex-security chief in a runoff vote next month.
Although Mr Barak and former secret service chief Ami Ayalon have called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to quit over his handling of last year's Lebanon war, both have stopped short of saying they would pull Labour out of his governing coalition.
Official results with all but one polling station counted showed Mr Barak with 36 per cent of the vote to Mr Ayalon's 31 per cent. These figures are short of the 40 per cent needed to avoid a June 12th runoff.
The outcome of the first round of voting among some 104,000 Labour members effectively toppled Defence Minister Amir Peretz as the centre-left party's chairman.
His unpopularity, along with Mr Olmert's plunged in the wake of the costly conflict last July and August with Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas.
An official inquiry found that both had mishandled the war, stirring public pressure for them to resign.
Mr Barak, a former general and Israel's most decorated soldier, served as prime minister from 1999 to 2001. During his term, he held unsuccessful peace talks with Syria and the Palestinians.
He was defeated by right-winger Ariel Sharon in a 2001 national election after a Palestinian uprising erupted. The first-round Labour triumph - no one candidate had been expected to pass the 40 per cent mark - was a key step towards a political comeback for Mr Barak.
But several polls have suggested that Mr Ayalon, who also has a military pedigree as a former admiral, will emerge on top in the runoff.
Both men have said they want to secure Israel's future by making peace with its Arab neighbours and have agreed to keep Labour as the ranking junior partner in Mr Olmert's government for now.
Mr Olmert's political future, however, is unclear. The Winograd Commission investigating the Lebanon war issues a final report in August.
Further criticism by the government-appointed panel could bring heavier public pressure on the veteran politician to step down. Mr Peretz has already said he will quit as defence minister regardless of the result of the Labour vote.