Can Yachimovich Keep Her Job As Israel's Labor Party Leader?
Sources within the Labor party told Mazal Mualem that an initiative is being kicked around to hold "lightning primaries," to bring an “end to the Yachimovich dictatorship era.”
Labor party chairwoman Shelly Yachimovitch will need a lot of successful political maneuvering in the coming months, and some luck as well, to hold on to her job. According to some very high-level sources in the Labor party, an initiative is being kicked around these days to hold "lightning primaries," within a few months from today, in order to bring an “end to the Yachimovich dictatorship era.”
According to the Labor party’s constitution, if the party does not assemble the government after elections, primaries must be held to elect its leadership within 14 months. But now it seems that Yachimovich, who is viewed as being personally responsible for the failure in the elections, will be forced to deal with a demand for primaries a long time before the legal deadline.
The initiative for the "lightning primaries," which is still in its early planning stages, is based on the assumption that Yachimovich can be easily defeated — if all three of her competitors will unite forces and then endorse one of them. The three potential Knesset-member candidates to inherit Yachimovich’s position are: Isaac Herzog, Eitan Cabel and Erel Margalit. In fact, the three already function full-time as internal opposition plank to the chairwoman, and are publicly criticizing her for the way she runs things.
Histadrut labor federation Chairman Ofer Eini is expected to hold a key position in the plans to replace Yachimovich. Eini was Yachimovich’ ally not long ago, when he helped her defeat [now] Environmental Protection Minister Amir Peretz in the second round of the primaries for Labor leadership about a year and a half ago. Today he is among her greatest opponents and his feelings toward her, according to people in the party, “border on disgust.”
