Gabbay and Peretz to contest Labor leadership

Former Defense Minister Amir Peretz and former Minister of Environmental Protection Avi Gabbay move onto the final round of the Labor party leadership primaries on Monday after finishing in the top two places in the first round ballot. Peretz won 32% of the vote and Gabbay, who only joined the Labor party from Kulanu last year, was the surprise runner-up with 27% of the vote.

Incumbent Isaac Herzog in third place with 17% has lost the leadership of the party. Erel Margalit was fractionally behind with 16% and Omer Bar Lev polled 6%. Out of 52,505 people registered to vote, 30,998 (59.04%) did so.

Gabbay, a former Bezeq Israeli Telecommunication Co. Ltd. (TASE: BEZQ) CEO and one of the founders of Kulanu, has said all along that he would win the first round, although the polls predicted that he was neck and neck in second place with Herzog, trailing Peretz. Peretz is a former head of the Histadrut who led the Labor party from 2005 to 2007.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 5, 2017

Gabbay and Peretz to contest Labor leadership

Avi Gabbay was the surprise runner up to Amir Peretz in the Labor party leadership primaries as incumbent Isaac Herzog finished only third.