The results are:
Ehud Barak - 35.6%
Ami Ayalon - 30.6%
Amir Peretz - 22.6%
Ehud Barak was the clear winner (note: since no one received 40% of the vote there will be a runoff election in 2 weeks) with over 35%. It is hard to believe that 35% of the people would vote for someone who was an absolute disaster as Prime Minister lasting only 14 months. Under his stewardship we ran away from Lebanon and the second intifada started. He has experience, all of it bad.
Even more astounding is that Amir Peretz got 22% of the vote. Not only was he an absolute failure as Defense Minister he failed completely to deliver on his social agenda as well. What were these people thinking? Do they really think he would be a good finance minister?
The bottom line is that although Amir Peretz lost, he also won. He got a lot more votes then was expected and showed that he is still a force in the Labor party. He is now in position to crown the next leader and it is going to cost them dearly.
5 comments:
two things, bluke -
1. the results are not that astounding. they are pretty close to the predictions, other than the good showing that Perezt put forth. He came in better than expected. I have my theories on that and will write something soon.
2. Barak did not really win. He took the most votes, but there was not a winner. Since nobody took 40%, they now have to move to a second round of voting between the top two vote-getters. That would be Ami Ayalon and Ehud Barak. Barak still has a lot of work to do, as does Ayalon. They each have to try to get the others to back him so they can pull down most of their voters....
your last comment is very true. Peretz can, right now at least, be called the kingmaker. And he will want a very high price for his support.
About your first point, it is not really 35% of the people. It is 35% of registered Labor members, of which there are a little over 100,000. When you take into account that each of the top three candidates signed up and registered about 20,000 candiddates a few months ago for the purpose of these primaries, you have to realize it is not really the general public voting for him, but friends and supproters he brought in specifically to vote for him...
All the pre-primary polls had Ami Ayalon winning.
You are right about the percentages, but still, I find it hard to understand why 22.4% of any group would want Amir Peretz as their leader.
that's a good question..
the polls that predicted Ayalon as winner, only did so by marginal numbers. He would beat Barak by 1 or 2 percent. Yes, they were wrong and Barak topped him by 5%, but it is not really such a significant difference... At least I don't think so..
with the economy doing so well right now, i sincerely hope that labor voters (the 80% who didn't vote for peretz) are smart enough to vote for whomever will keep Peretz the hell out of the ministry of finance
There is no reason to have a socialist party.
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