Former Minister Micha Harish was named on Sunday as the temporary chairman of the Labor party.
Harish, 75, is a former Knesset member and minister who has also served as Secretary-General of the Labor party.
He was first elected to the Knesset in 1973 and served for 23 years until 1996. Harish was chairman of both the Knesset’s Finance Committee as well as the Energy Subcommittee. In 1988 he headed the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee on Road Accidents.
Harish also served as Minister of Industry and Trade during Yitzhak Rabin’s second government between 1992 and 1996 (Shimon Peres had served as Prime Minister following Rabin’s assassination). When he later failed to be re-elected into the Labor party during the primaries, he retired from the Knesset and became a business consultant. He has continued being active in the Labor Party, albeit outside the Knesset.
Members of the Labor party said on Sunday that Harish was chosen as acting chairman partly because he was not involved in any of the recent political intrigue in the party, and as such his candidacy had been accepted by everyone.
A Knesset party member who took part in a meeting of the party's secretariat said that Harish was chosen because he was a management type. The MK added, “We remember his glory days during the Rabin period. The party has financial problems and he could help it.”
Harish will serve as chairman pending new elections for the party’s leadership, the date for which has not yet been set by the party’s members.
The Labor party has undergone some major changes and difficulties in the last week, after Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Knesset Members Matan Vilnai, Shalom Simchon, Einat Wilf and Orit Noked split the party, forming a new faction called ”Independence.”
In response to Barak’s move, the three Labor Party cabinet ministers resigned their positions one after the other and left the Netanyahu government.