Labor chief Peretz sorry for party’s failure to vote to disqualify Otzma Yehudit

Labor Party leader Amir Peretz blames “human error” for the fact that his party’s representative on the Central Elections Committee was absent from the vote earlier today that approved the extremist Otzma Yehudit party’s run in the September elections.

“The human error of my party’s representatives led unfortunately to approval for a racist party to run in the coming elections,” Peretz says on Twitter.

“Responsible leadership takes responsibility for mistakes and works quickly to fix them. That will be done.”

He promises: “Tomorrow we will act to correct the unfortunate incident by appealing to the Supreme Court” to disqualify Otzma Yehudit.

The promise is unnecessary, as the law requires the committee’s decision to receive the court’s approval in any case.

Labor-Gesher’s representative held the deciding vote in an evenly-split committee when he stepped out of the meeting shortly before the vote.