Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer was elected as Labor Party Chairman, after he handily won a majority of the ballots cast Wednesday in a revote in 51 disputed polling stations. Ben-Eliezer defeated Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg by over 2,000 votes, giving him a total of 50.8% of the vote in the Labor leadership primary elections, which began on September 4.

In his victory speech at Labor Party headquarters in Tel Aviv, Ben-Eliezer vowed to unify the party. "There are no more camps, and there are no more disputes in this party. We will now be one family and one party," he declared.

Ben-Eliezer, 65, is the first Sephardic leader of the Labor

"We will now be one family and one party" - Labor Party Chairman Binyamin Ben-Eliezer

Party. "Until they told me yesterday, I thought I was Israeli in every way," Ben-Eliezer said. "The fact I was born in Iraq you can't take from me, nor can you take away that my given name is Fuad."

A few minutes after the polling stations closed, Burg called to congratulate Ben-Eliezer on his victory. "I hope you will be able to lead the party out of the difficult situation it is in, and I wish you much luck," he said.

Burg, who earlier termed the revote a "farce," after Labor Party members from the Druze and Arab communities announced that they would boycott the elections, didn't even bother to campaign for support this week and went about his Knesset business as usual. "For weeks, and especially in the last days, we knew that the elections were a farce and that the results were determined in advance," he told supporters. "I have no doubt that better days are ahead, including battles and even successes, and that in the end, truth will prevail."

Ben-Eliezer also received a congratulatory phone call from Foreign Affairs Minister Shimon Peres, who was in Kiev meeting with Ukrainian officials. With his election, Ben-Eliezer assumed the role of senior-most Labor minister in the national unity government. "I intend to maintain Shimon Peres's place in the party, and will not do anything to detract from his stature," Ben-Eliezer pledged. "But let me make it clear, from now on I am the senior minister in the party," he added.

Ben-Eliezer is due to meet with Peres, possibly on Friday, to inform him that in the future, meetings of Labor Party ministers will take place in his office in the Defense Ministry. Media sources speculated that Ben-Eliezer would call for the resignation of Labor's general secretary, Minister without portfolio Raanan Cohen, and may abolish the symbolic position altogether.

Ben-Eliezer will decide whether Labor stays in government
Ben-Eliezer is now in the position of deciding the future of his party's role in the national unity government. Labor Party members questioned not if, but when would Ben-Eliezer call on the party to leave the coalition, and prepare it as an alternative to the Likud-led government. Burg had called on the party to leave the government, charging that by its presence, Labor gave harsh policies against the Palestinians a measure of justification.

"We have to present a diplomatic alternative," said MK Haim Ramon, who told Army Radio that Labor should support his proposal of unilateral separation from the Palestinians and leave the government. Ramon congratulated Ben-Eliezer on his victory by saying, "You have to admire him for starting a race in which he had almost no chance and ultimately ending up as the party chairman."

Former Justice Minister Yossi Beilin accused Ben-Eliezer of representing hawkish Likud Party views. "The man is fighting against the Left and is overtaking Sharon from the right," he told Army Radio. Beilin, who said that Ben-Eliezer was now the "legal," but not the "legitimate" leader of the party, said he hoped that the Defense Minister would be only a "temporary" leader.

Ramon dismissed Beilin's charges, saying that Ben-Eliezer was Labor's legitimate leader, and that he would help him to become Israel's next Prime Minister.

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