ISRAEL’S LABOR party has voted to elect a new leader, with all the polls indicating that Shelly Yachimovich, boosted by the wave of social protest that swept the country this summer, would win.
Four candidates were in the race, and a 40 per cent share of the vote by the frontrunner was required to avoid a run-off between the top two contenders next week.
Labor, which dominated Israeli politics for three decades after the founding of the state in 1948, hit rock bottom in January this year when its leader, defence minister Ehud Barak, quit the party with four other politicians, leaving Labor with only eight members in the 120-member Knesset parliament.
Three of those eight members stood for party leader: Ms Yachimovich; former welfare minister Yitzhak Herzog, whose grandfather was Ireland’s first chief rabbi, and Amir Peretz, the former head of the Histadrut trade union federation.
The fourth candidate was former general Amram Mitzna. Both Mr Mitzna and Mr Peretz have served as Labor leader in the past, with little distinction.
If the polls were right and Ms Yachimovich (51) wins the primary, she will become the second female to head the party after the legendary Golda Meir, who led Labor from 1969-74.
In a stroke of good fortune for Ms Yachimovich, who has always stressed social issues, the Labor leadership campaign over the last few months dovetailed with Israel’s biggest ever social protest movement.
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took part in demonstrations demanding cheaper prices, affordable housing and a more equitable distribution of wealth. Many of the young activists leading the struggle were also involved in Ms Yachimovich’s primary campaign.
Ms Yachimovich first came to prominence as the host of Israel radio’s most popular daytime current affairs show. She gained a reputation as an outspoken left-wing presenter who stood up for the rights of the working class and the poor. Her style was abrasive, some would say rude.
After a successful transition from radio to television, she made the move from journalism to politics in November 2005, joining Labor two weeks after Mr Peretz became party leader. However her one-time mentor became a bitter political foe after he agreed to serve as defence minister under prime minister Ehud Olmert.
Ms Yachimovich has served in the Knesset since 2006 and has gained a reputation as an excellent parliamentarian campaigning for social issues. Among legislation she pushed through were bills allowing cashiers to sit down at work and a highly contested bill diverting royalties from private energy companies to the state.
However her decision to give priority to social issues ahead of the Palestinian question annoyed many on the left.
In recent interviews, she made it clear that she did not consider Jewish settlers as criminals and she would not participate in boycotts of goods produced on settlements. Left-wing opponents argued that without a just solution to the Palestinian problem, there would never be real social justice in Israel.