According to the party’s bylaws, a new member cannot vote in a primary election until being a member for at least six months. The six-month marker has already passed, locking out any new members from participating in the leadership election race.
Most party officials view this reality as a plus for former party leader and prime minister, Ehud Barak, who is expected to make another bid for the party’s top spot.
The losers will be Ophir Pines (photo above) and current party leader, Defense Minister Amir Peretz.
At present, Peretz and Pines are expected to make a formidable effort to sign on supporters, but unless the party’s Central Committee governing body can change the bylaws, it will not help their chances of emerging the victor in the primary race.
Pines recently resigned his cabinet post because of his objections to the deal signed between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu Party. In reality, Pines climbed up a “very high tree” as most analysts put it, leaving himself no alternative but to submit his resignation. He openly lambasted Peretz for his decision to remain in the coalition with the “right-wing extremist party” – and made a bid to persuade the central committee to vote down the move.
Nevertheless, the party leadership body voted in support of Peretz, giving credibility to his decision to remain in the coalition with Yisrael Beitenu. Pines now vows that if elected to head the party, he will present Olmert with an ultimatum: either Labor or Yisrael Beitenu. He says he will not permit the Labor Party to be part of a coalition government with Avigdor Lieberman.
In a weekend election campaign kick-off in Holon, Pines announced that as party leader and coalition partner, he would not accept the defense portfolio for himself, but would call on one of the party’s senior members, a retired IDF general, to fill the post. He thus focused on mounting calls for Peretz to step down due to his lack of experience in defense-related matters and ministerial responsibility for widespread failures in the war in Lebanon this past summer.
Barak, on the other hand, a former IDF chief of staff and the most decorated officer in the IDF’s history, can easily permit himself to accept the post.
As for Peretz, who is under daily calls to step down, he exhibits a calm outward demeanor, insisting he has no intentions of stepping down from his senior post.
In the last party leadership race, other contenders included Minister of National Infrastructure Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a retired brigadier-general, and MK Matan Vilnai, a retired IDF major-general and deputy chief of staff.
Pines is out front leading the young Labor camp, a more radical left-wing camp as opposed to the party’s more centrist-left agenda, the voice of the new opposition, confident he will muster the required support to oust Peretz in May and assume control of the party.
His decision to resign from the cabinet, albeit the result of his public condemnation of Peretz, did indeed lend a modicum of credibility to his position, stating Labor voters did not cast their ballot for Labor to find themselves in a coalition with Minister of Strategic Planning Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu Party.
Most party officials view this reality as a plus for former party leader and prime minister, Ehud Barak, who is expected to make another bid for the party’s top spot.
The losers will be Ophir Pines (photo above) and current party leader, Defense Minister Amir Peretz.
At present, Peretz and Pines are expected to make a formidable effort to sign on supporters, but unless the party’s Central Committee governing body can change the bylaws, it will not help their chances of emerging the victor in the primary race.
Pines recently resigned his cabinet post because of his objections to the deal signed between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu Party. In reality, Pines climbed up a “very high tree” as most analysts put it, leaving himself no alternative but to submit his resignation. He openly lambasted Peretz for his decision to remain in the coalition with the “right-wing extremist party” – and made a bid to persuade the central committee to vote down the move.
Nevertheless, the party leadership body voted in support of Peretz, giving credibility to his decision to remain in the coalition with Yisrael Beitenu. Pines now vows that if elected to head the party, he will present Olmert with an ultimatum: either Labor or Yisrael Beitenu. He says he will not permit the Labor Party to be part of a coalition government with Avigdor Lieberman.
In a weekend election campaign kick-off in Holon, Pines announced that as party leader and coalition partner, he would not accept the defense portfolio for himself, but would call on one of the party’s senior members, a retired IDF general, to fill the post. He thus focused on mounting calls for Peretz to step down due to his lack of experience in defense-related matters and ministerial responsibility for widespread failures in the war in Lebanon this past summer.
Barak, on the other hand, a former IDF chief of staff and the most decorated officer in the IDF’s history, can easily permit himself to accept the post.
As for Peretz, who is under daily calls to step down, he exhibits a calm outward demeanor, insisting he has no intentions of stepping down from his senior post.
In the last party leadership race, other contenders included Minister of National Infrastructure Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a retired brigadier-general, and MK Matan Vilnai, a retired IDF major-general and deputy chief of staff.
Pines is out front leading the young Labor camp, a more radical left-wing camp as opposed to the party’s more centrist-left agenda, the voice of the new opposition, confident he will muster the required support to oust Peretz in May and assume control of the party.
His decision to resign from the cabinet, albeit the result of his public condemnation of Peretz, did indeed lend a modicum of credibility to his position, stating Labor voters did not cast their ballot for Labor to find themselves in a coalition with Minister of Strategic Planning Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu Party.