Poll: Mitzna is Israel's new Labour leader
Israel’s Labour Party members tonight chose a relative newcomer to politics, former general Amram Mitzna, as their leader to challenge Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Likud in January elections, an exit poll showed.
The poll gave Mitzna, the dovish mayor of the coastal city of Haifa, 57% of the vote, compared to 35% for the current Labour leader, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. MP Haim Ramon was a distant third with 8%, the poll of 1,000 Labour Party members showed.
While surveys had indicated Mitzna would win the primary, polls also point to Sharon’s hawkish Likud party winning the largest number of seats in January 28 general elections, benefiting from the Israeli public’s shift to the right after two years of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Mitzna said today that if elected prime minister, he would reverse Sharon’s course by withdrawing unilaterally from the Gaza Strip and negotiating with any Palestinian leadership.
“The Labour Party is embarking on a new path to present the Israeli public a real alternative,” he said at his headquarters after initial results were announced.
Mitzna’s main challenger in Tuesday’s primary had been Ben-Eliezer, whose reputation among many Labour supporters was tarnished by his stint as defence minister in Sharon’s ”national unity” government.
Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, said the election was an internal Israeli matter. ”We are concerned to find leaders who are committed to work with us for peace,” he said, “therefore we welcome any Israeli leader who is going to be committed to make peace with us and work according to the signed agreements.”
