Former Labor leader backs Gabbay in leadership bid

Former Labor Party leader Shelly Yachimovich threw her support on Thursday behind outsider candidate Avi Gabbay in the race for the party’s chairmanship.

In a Facebook post, Yachimovich praised Gabbay for opposing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he served under him as environmental protection minister for the Kulanu party.

“His stance, as the lone minister in the government against Netanyahu and his corrupt gas-extraction licensing agreement, is much more than a positive point in his past. It is a testament to the future,” she wrote.

Yachimovich had been widely expected to back whoever ran against Amir Peretz, her mentor-turned-rival.

Gabbay will face off against Peretz in the Monday runoff to head the social democratic-minded party after the two received the most votes in Tuesday’s primary.

Peretz finished in the lead with 32 percent (10,141 votes), followed by newcomer Gabbay with 27% (8,395), with a turnout of 59%.

Former prime minister Ehud Barak on Wednesday also endorsed Gabbay for the leadership of Labor, ahead of the final round of voting.

Incumbent opposition leader Isaac Herzog has yet to give his backing to either candidate, though Peretz has already received the endorsement of half a dozen Labor MKs.

Omer Bar-Lev, who also ran for leader of the party in Tuesday’s primary, is to announce later on Thursday that he will not formally endorse either candidate, Channel 2 reporter Amit Segal tweeted.

Peretz and Gabbay are both of Moroccan extraction, but the similarity ends there: A former Labor leader and defense minister, Peretz is a familiar face in the party with a trade unionist background, while Gabbay — a former environmental protection minister and CEO of the Bezeq telecommunications giant — is a new recruit to the socialist-minded camp.

Both Gabbay and Peretz on Wednesday expressed support for continuing the party’s partnership with Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua, which along with Labor makes up the Zionist Union faction. Livni was set to meet with both candidates as well.

Gabbay quit Netanyahu’s cabinet in May 2016, after coalition talks brought the Yisrael Beytenu party into the government. In a dramatic tirade, he accused the coalition of leading Israel on a path to destruction.

That breakout moment for Gabbay, who was a political appointment by Kulanu’s leader, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, was followed by his crossing the aisle and joining the fight for the Labor leadership.

Polls released on Wednesday predict that whichever of the two becomes Labor leader, the party is project to lose seats and become only the third-largest party in the next Knesset, behind the ruling Likud and centrist Yesh Atid.

Marissa Newman contributed to this report.