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Haifa Mayor Amram Mitzna, who entered national politics in August on a dovish platform promising to withdraw from the territories and negotiate with the Palestinians under fire, last night won the Labor Party chairmanship, defeating the incumbent Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and challenger Haim Ramon by a wide margin.
Ben-Eliezer, at Labor Party headquarters after midnight, for 20 minutes delivered what sounded more like a victory speech. He thanked friends and followers "who have been with me for nearly two decades," and promised he would maintain his political camp, before finally saying: "Amram Mitzna called me about half an hour ago and I congratulated him and wished him success. I told him the voters has decided, and we are a party that is committed to its rules. And if that's the result, all I can do - and not only me, but my camp - is to respect it and lend a hand to help you win the coming elections."
But then he went on to warn that "the choice facing us and Mitzna, is not to be Meretz II, but to be the Labor Party." This appeared to be a clear challenge to Mitzna who has said that if elected prime minister he would immediately resume negotiations with the Palestinians, and set a one-year deadline for them to succeed, before beginning a unilateral withdrawal. Ben-Eliezer spoke of Labor's heritage of defending "every house in Israel," possibly an indication he would fight Mitzna's plans for a quick evacuation of the Gaza settlements.
The drama of the evening began at 9 P.M., when a Channel Two poll showed Mitzna winning 57 percent of the vote, Ben-Eliezer getting 35 percent, and Ramon 8 percent. Later in the evening as ballot boxes were counted, the spread appeared to narrow to around 10 percent. Ramon quickly called on Ben-Eliezer to throw his weight behind Mitzna, who promised there would be no purges, and called on all members of the party to unite behind his leadership. But Ben-Eliezer supporters, including at least one MK, Eli Ben-Menachem, grumbled the vote was along ethnic lines, with the Ashkenazis voting for Mitzna and the Sephardis for Ben-Eliezer.
Mitzna, who exuded serenity throughout the campaign, dismissed the complaints as "nonsense. I won cities like Ramle, Lod, and Petach Tikva - obviously not Ashkenazi polling stations."
As one of his supporters, MK Avraham Shochat pointed out, the "ethnic scarecrow," as Mitzna referred to it, was not a Ben-Eliezer camp complaint a year ago when he won the leadership.
Indeed, Mitzna's victory in many places was massive. Even in Omer, the home town of one of Ben-Eliezer's top supporters and campaign activists, MK Weizman Shiri, Mitzna won by a huge margin, with 214 votes to Ben-Eliezer's 97.
Mitzna's next hurdle in taking control of the party is tomorrow's party convention, which will be asked by Ben-Eliezer ally MK Ephraim Sneh to change the nomination process for Labor's Knesset list from an open race to the 5,000 convention members voting for the candidates. That could cause a split in the party, with stalwarts such as Avraham Burg, Haim Ramon, and Yossi Beilin threatening to walk out if the primaries are canceled. Ramon later turned up at party headquarters last night.
Mitzna, due late last night at party headquarters in Tel Aviv, said after arriving at his campaign headquarters in Haifa that he reckons he will manage to work out a compromise before the convention tomorrow. He said he plans no personnel changes in the party - "all those who want to work with me are welcome," he said, but added, "every candidate for Knesset will have to be elected."
Ben-Eliezer's midnight speech at party headquarters in Tel Aviv was a challenge to Mitzna, but it is not clear he will be able to follow through on his threats. Though he controls the party convention, which was elected while he was chairman, Mitzna's landslide could easily sway members to shift their allegiances.
Party officials will try to work out a deal that will prevent a head-on clash tomorrow between the Ben-Eliezer camp and the new chairman and most of the current MKs, who oppose canceling the primaries.
Reactions across the polticial spectrum were predictable. Likud ministers, such as Tzachi Hanegbi, gloated that Labor had become, as Ben-Eliezer warned, "a second Meretz," while on the left, Yossi Sarid, chairman of Meretz, wished Mitzna success in his new job, but said it was a mission impossible.
"Mitzna has been given a smashed, broken, faded party that gradually lost its identity and its social and political commitments. The rehabilitation is enormous and hopefully Mitzna will prove his capabilities. His first test will be the Knesset list. If all the Labor heroes of the unity government are on the list, then Mitzna's election will quickly prove to be meaningless."
Meanwhile, Yossi Beilin, the Labor Party gadfly who had vowed to quit the party if Ben-Eliezer was elected, expressed satisfaction with the vote. He said he is working to form a new alignment between Labor and Meretz and other parties in what has become known as "the Rabin bloc," meaning Labor, Meretz, Shinui, One Nation, and Arab parties.