Labor secretary general in public demand: Gabbay must resign

The secretary-general of the Labor party is calling for  chairman Avi Gabbay to resign after leading the party to its worst ever election result, saying that a new leader is needed in order to “begin the work of rebuilding” the once venerable shaper of Israeli politics.

The party, which led Israel for the country’s first 30 years, crashed to just six seats Tuesday with 4.46 percent of the votes, its worst showing in its 71-year history. In the 2015 elections, Labor, as part of the Zionist Union faction, won 24 seats.

In the first public call for Gabbay’s resignation from a Labor party official, secretary-general Eran Hermoni, who was number 11 on the party’s electoral slate, says he told the former Kulanu minister this morning that his time at the helm of Labor was up.

“I made it clear to Gabbay that in light of the devastating election outcome, he must take responsibility and resign immediately from the position of chairman of the Labor party,” Hermoni says in a message sent to party members.

He says that anyone who cares about the future of Labor “has a duty to say clearly: any other chairman who brought such a result would resign.”

The party has a dizzying history of replacing its chairman after election losses. Since it last won the election in 1992, it has seen a whopping total of 13 different leaders.

Hermoni admits that Gabbay’s resignation would not save the party on its own, “but without it,” he adds, “we will not be able to begin the vital work of rebuilding and rehabilitation.”

— Raoul Wootliff