Israel's Minority Labor Party to Pick a Leader

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RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

Israel's minority party, Labor, is holding an election today for its leader. This election could have important consequences for the government, because Labor is a key member of Israel's ruling coalition. And it's a close call between the former prime minister and a former chief of intelligence.

NPR's Linda Gradstein is in Jerusalem and joins us. Good morning.

LINDA GRADSTEIN: Good morning.

MONTAGNE: Tell us a little bit about these two men.

GRADSTEIN: Well, the former prime minister is Ehud Barak. He was the prime minister from 1999 to 2001, less than two years. And he was actually not a very popular prime minister. It was during under his tenure that Israel withdrew from Lebanon. And following last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah guerillas in south Lebanon, many in Israel said that Barak made a mistake by pulling out of Lebanon and letting Hezbollah sort of arm itself there. He is a former chief of staff. He is seen as one of the classic sort of Israeli generals. The other person is Ami Ayalon, who is a former intelligence chief, former head of the Navy. He is a novice in politics, as opposed to Barak. He is seen by many Israelis as far more to the left of Barak.

He's involved in something called the People's Voice, which is this peace initiative calling for signatures of Israelis and Palestinians for a peace plan of a full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and parts of East Jerusalem. So he's seen as more to the left, but he's also seen as sort of clean government. And the latest polls show that the race is too close to call at this point.

MONTAGNE: Now this is an election that's happening, in a way, because it was too close to begin with.

GRADSTEIN: That's right. This is a runoff. The Labor Party held their primaries last month. There were five candidates, but none of them got the required 40 percent. So in this runoff, the top two candidates - who are Barak and Ami Ayalon - are facing off.

What's interesting also is that the current Labor Party leader, Amir Peretz -who's also the defense minister, and who's also very unpopular - has thrown his support behind Ayalon. Without Peretz's support, the polls were predicting that Barak would win. With Peretz's support, it's really a sort of up in the air about who's going to win. But as one Israeli commentator put it, it will be a vote on who do the Labor Party leaders hate less: Barak or Peretz and Ayalon?

MONTAGNE: And what impact, if any, does this election have on the current prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who is, of course, not Labor?

GRADSTEIN: That's correct. Olmert is the head of the Kadima Party. He is an embattled prime minister, since a government report came out a couple of months ago that said that he mishandled Israel's war against Hezbollah in Lebanon last summer.

Now, today's runoff vote actually has the potential to really shake up Israeli politics. Both Barak and Ayalon have called on Olmert to resign, saying, you know, after this government report, he shouldn't be able to stay in office. At the same time, Israeli analysts say that it's not likely that they're going to do that immediately.

They will probably wait until the final report comes out in August. Also, if Barak wins, he's expected to be appointed defense minister to replace Amir Peretz, the current Labor Party leader, who is not very popular at all. And if Ayalon wins, he's expected to be appointed finance minister.

So in any case, it's going to cause the government shake up. Labor is the largest coalition partner to Olmert's Kadima Party. And if Labor did pull itself out of the government completely, then the government would fall on Israel will go to new elections.

MONTAGNE: Linda, thanks very much. NPR's Linda Gradstein in Jerusalem, where Israel's Labor Party is holding an election for its leader.

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