Labor would received only six Knesset seats if elections were held today, according to a poll released Wednesday, hours before party chairman Ehud Barak plans to convene a party conference that may be boycotted by half of the faction.
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Barak faces wholesale rebellion as a growing number of party Knesset Members plan to boycott Wednesday’s vote on a new constitution. They charge that Barak’s “reform” will in effect give him dictatorial powers.
The party chairman’s problems began immediately after February’s general elections, when the party’s strength was decimated. After the final tally showed that Labor won only 13 seats, six seats less than the 19 it held in the previous Knesset, Barak announced that he had “accepted the voters’ decision that Labor sit in the opposition.”
His about-face to join the Likud-led coalition immediately resulted in a group of five “rebels” – Eitan Cabel, who resigned as party secretary, Yuli Tamir, Ophir Pines-Paz, Barak’s predecessor Amir Peretz and Shelly Yechimovich. MK Pines-Paz has labeled Barak “a dictator.” 
MK Pines-Paz has labeled Barak 'a dictator.' 
Following a last-minute meeting with Barak last night that failed to produce an agreement over his reform package, MKs Avishai Braverman and Yitzchak Herzog said they will not back him and may boycott also Wednesday’s Labor party conference.
Barak’s proposals would replace the youth wing with a new “youth forum,” and would eliminate the central committee, combining it with a smaller Labor committee. He also wants to prevent a leadership election scheduled for next April and instead hold it six months before the next general election in November 2013.
Former Education Minister MK Tamir has complained to the Civil Service Commissioner over alleged mud slinging by Barak’s media advisor Ronen Moshe. Tamir accused Moshe of saying in a phone conversation with her advisor that Tamir is a "garbage can that never did anything in her life.” Moshe replied that the quote "is not exact."
The current uproar in the Labor party is the second time Barak has faced dissent while chairman. His term as Prime Minister ended prematurely in 2000 when his solid majority in the Knesset disintegrated after only 18 months, forcing a new election that Ariel Sharon won in a landslide victory.