As votes tallied, Herzog poised to take helm of Labor Party

Israel may have a new opposition leader Friday, after Labor Party voters appeared to favor challenger Isaac Herzog over current party leader Shelly Yachimovich in primary voting.

With 52 percent of ballots counted by 7 a.m. Friday, Herzog held the lead 56%-45%.

While the number represents only some 1,200 ballots, low turnout at the polls Thursday indicate the slim margin may be enough to carry Herzog to victory.

Slightly over half of eligible Labor Party primary voters cast ballots in the party’s leadership primaries by the time polls closed at 10 p.m., leading to worries in Yachimovich’s camp that the low turnout may help unseat her.

“Voting percentages are quite low; they are not good for us,” Yachimovich said in an interview with Channel 2 News Thursday evening.

“Low percentages always serve big money. We do not have big money and so those who believe in our way are called upon now to gather their children and come to the polling station,” she said.

According to a text message sent out by Labor Party officials, a total of 52.7% of eligible party members had voted in the primaries.

Herzog, who was also interviewed by Channel 2, criticized Yachimovich for leading the party with too firm a hand, and said he believed “in collaborative leadership.”

“The nation of Israel has had enough one-time leaders,” he said, a reference to Labor’s 18-year streak in which none of the party’s incumbents have won reelection. The country, Herzog added, “wants someone who will get the job done,” he said.

“I will get the job done,” Herzog concluded.

Some 55,000 members of Israel’s Labor Party were eligible to vote in the hotly contested party primary.

Polls opened at 10 a.m. at 79 voting locations around the country, an increase from 68 sites during the last primaries in 2011. Party members were allowed to cast their ballots at any of the stations, regardless of their place of residency.

Results are expected to be announced early Friday.

Last week, a poll commissioned by Channel 2 political anchor Nissim Mishal showed Yachimovich holding a comfortable lead over Herzog among Labor voters, 64.4 percent to 35.6 percent.

But the Herzog campaign has pointed to a second poll commissioned by Mishal that asked the same question among the general public. That poll showed that most Israelis would prefer to see Herzog head the Labor Party rather than Yachimovich, by 54% to 46%. That gap suggests that Labor might do better at the ballot box if it was headed by Herzog, according to his supporters.

Once a powerhouse in Israeli politics and the flagship of the Israeli left, Labor has seen its influence wane in recent years. The party once reliably won over 30 Knesset seats, and as many as 44 in the 1992 election that brought Yitzhak Rabin to power on a peace platform, but dropped to just 13 seats in 2009 under the leadership of former prime minister Ehud Barak. Yachimovich led the party in the latest elections in January, and garnered a disappointing 15 seats, just two more than the party’s worst-ever electoral showing.

If Yachimovich wins, it will mark the first time a Labor leader has been reelected to a consecutive term since Shimon Peres, now Israel’s president, won reelection as party leader in 1988. Likud in all its incarnations, on the other side of the political map, has had just four leaders in the 65 years of Israel’s existence; Labor has seen eight in 21 years.

That instability, Yachimovich’s supporters have said, has been a key factor in the party’s lackluster showing in recent years. Labor has held the premiership for only two years in the past 17.

“We’re going to make history,” Yachimovich’s spokeswoman Bar Peled told The Times of Israel in October. “The Labor Party will reelect a chairperson for the first time in a long time.”

However, “we’re not taking victory as a given,” Peled added.

Yachimovich has the public support of seven Labor MKs — Avishay Braverman, Michal Biran, Moshe Mizrahi, Mickey Rosenthal, Itzik Shmuli, Nachman Shai and Stav Shaffir — and the tacit support of more. Some MKs, such as party secretary-general Hilik Bar, are refusing to side with a candidate due to their roles in the party’s institutions, but were identified in the past as Yachimovich supporters.

Herzog, a former welfare minister and popular leader in the party, has garnered the support of fewer MKs, including Eitan Cabel, Merav Michaeli and Erel Margalit.