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Israel's Labor goes to the polls

Israel's Labor voted for a new leader yesterday, with ex-premier Ehud Barak in a tight race with a former homeland security chief to head the center-left party, in a key election for embattled Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Polls opened across Israel early yesterday, with more than 100,000 party members casting ballots in an internal election that has been described by one lawmaker as "the most important moment in the party's history" in 15 years.

Voting was to end at 9pm, with the early results expected two hours later.

The two front-runners are Barak, hoping to stage a political comeback, and former head of the Shin Beth internal security agency Ami Ayalon, a political novice aiming to burst onto the national stage.

Both have warned that they would pull Labor out of Olmert's coalition unless the beleaguered premier steps down in the wake of a biting report of his handling of last year's Lebanon war.

Ayalon has vowed to do so immediately and Barak has said he would serve in Olmert's government as defense minister until early elections are held.

Should Labor and its 19 MPs bolt, it would leave Olmert's coalition with the support of just 59 MPs -- two short of a majority in the 120-seat parliament.

Under such a scenario, Olmert would face three options -- to resign, to try to form a new coalition with an ultra-Orthodox or a right-wing party, or to call for early elections.

"Olmert looks at these happenings with suspicion and trepidation," wrote Maariv newspaper. "According to the domino theory, as soon as the Labor party taps into the post-war sense of despair and need for change, all the other parties will follow in its wake and in the end, the entire system will collapse into itself and we will go to elections."

According to the most recent polls, Ayalon leads the race slightly with 32.3 percent, followed by Barak with 30.2 percent.

Current Labor leader, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, is in a distant third with 14.7 percent. Two other candidates are also running.

The two front-runners are aiming to get 40 percent of the vote in order to avoid a run-off ballot, which would take place in two weeks.

Barak, Israel's most decorated soldier and a former chief of staff, emphasized his security background in a last-minute appeal to undecided voters.

"Think about who should be at the head of the party in time of war," he told Maariv. "The last war in Lebanon sparked a fear for our existence and even more worrying, a crisis of confidence toward the country's leadership. I will accomplish the needed reforms."

Ayalon vowed to "reinforce security and combat terrorism, corruption, put the peace process back on track and make education a priority."

"This is the program of a party that intends to come back to power," he told the tabloid.
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