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Official Result of Israel Labor Leadership Vote Postponed to Thursday
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, Sept 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israel's Labor party said that official results of its leadership contest have been postponed until Thursday, after one of the candidates, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, claimed the voting had been tainted by fraud and demanded a recount.
The party's electoral commission still had to decide whether to count the ballots in three polling stations, as the other contender, Parliament Speaker Avraham Burg held a slim advantage of 1,088 votes with most ballots already counted, a party spokesman said.
Labor party members were voting to replace Ehud Barak, who resigned following his crushing defeat by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in elections on February 6th, and determine who will run for the premiership in 2003.
Ben Eliezer denounced the party voting as a "major political scandal" and demanded an electoral verification commission chaired by a magistrate be established to supervise a recount.
Ben Eliezer expressed surprise that he trailed Burg in the Druze sector, where he said he had always come out on top, including in the party's 1999 primaries.
With two-thirds of the votes counted, Ben Eliezer had been leading with 51.7% to Burg's 47%, party officials said, but the turnaround occurred when the between 5,000 and 6,000 Druze votes were counted.
Party election committee head Efi Stenzler told Israeli public radio: "Burg is slightly ahead after counting 99% of the votes, but three percent of the ballot boxes have still to be counted and there are objections about the results registered in two or three boxes."
Stenzler said only some 50% of the 117,000 party's eligible members voted in Tuesday's election.
Israeli reports indicate that the turnout in Arab areas was very high - 80% - while with settler voters, it was just over 60%. The urban vote was low at around 45%.
Burg, 46, told Israel radio Tuesday that if elected, he would step down as speaker to work full time as party leader. An Orthodox Jew, he has presented himself as a unifier in a society divided between Jews and Arabs, Orthodox and secular Jews, the privileged and the poor.
He said that he expected Ben-Eliezer to resign from the post of defense minister should he be elected, claiming that it would be impossible to rebuild the party on a part-time basis.
Charging that the 65-year-old Ben-Eliezer represents the party's past, Burg told Israel radio, "Labor is ready today to change generations."
Ben-Eliezer retorted that Burg and other dovish Labor members had driven the party to the left-wing fringe and cost it popular support.
Ben-Eliezer said he would not resign if he won the primary, but would instead gather a number of party members who would, together with him, rebuild the emaciated party.
According to BBC online service, the two candidates differ greatly in both substance and style.
Israelis see Burg as the leader of the moderate section of the party, which is keen to enter into talks with the Palestinians.
Ben-Eliezer, who is currently serving as defense minister in Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's national unity government, is regarded as the representative of the party's hawks, who are reluctant to return the Occupied Territories and grant rights to the Palestinians.
He, however, also favors negotiations with the Palestinians, but has consistently supported the use of military measures against the Palestinians since the beginning of the Intifada, or uprising, and has become a powerful figure in Sharon's government.
The Iraqi-born Ben-Eliezer entered politics in 1984 after ending his military career. He served as military governor of the West Bank and coordinator of government activities in Lebanon and has held several ministerial posts in recent governments.
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