Can revived Labor Party knock Sharon out of power?

jerusalem | The election of Amir Peretz, a 53-year-old underdog, as leader of the Labor Party is almost certain to change the face of Israeli politics.

The result of the Nov. 9 Labor primary vote makes more likely the formation of a new centrist party led by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, backed by defectors from Labor and Likud. It creates the potential for a profound change in voting patterns, with many traditional Likud voters among the Sephardi working-class likely to consider voting for the Moroccan-born Peretz. It puts Labor squarely on the left of the Israeli political divide, and clarifies its differences with Likud on key peacemaking and economic issues.

And at the very least it almost certainly means that elections, currently slated for November 2006, will be moved up to the first half of the year.

Polls from last week suggest that Labor under Peretz would do well in those elections. Polls in Ha'aretz and Ma'ariv show Labor rising from its current 21 Knesset seats to 27 or 28 places in the legislature, with the Likud under Sharon winning 37 to 39.

The Ha'aretz poll also shows that if Sharon — now facing strong internal dissent from Likud members who opposed his Gaza withdrawal plan — breaks away from Likud to form a new centrist party, it would win 32 seats to Labor's 27, with a Likud rump led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finishing third with 25 seats.

These results reflect the situation before campaigning has even started. A good campaign could establish the untried Peretz as a bona fide national leader — and, some pundits believe, even could win the election for Labor.

Conversely, now that he's Labor leader, Peretz will become the prime target of Likud barbs. Should he fail to rise to the occasion, Labor's electoral fortunes could plummet.

Much will depend on what happens inside Labor. Peretz won 42.3 percent of the votes in the primary, scoring a stunning upset over incumbent Shimon Peres (40 percent) and former party leader Benjamin Ben Eliezer (16.8 percent), despite the party establishment's efforts to stop him.

Whether or not there are major political realignments, elections will probably be moved up to some time between March and May of 2006. Peretz has made it clear that he intends to pull Labor out of the governing coalition within six weeks, and he and Sharon are due to meet soon to agree on a new election date.

Peretz's political views are clear: On the Palestinian issue, he's a dove who believes in the feasibility of a final peace agreement; on the economy, he believes in free-market forces to create wealth and government intervention to distribute it more evenly.

On both the Palestinian and economic issues, he talks about a "moral road map" and says the occupation of the West Bank must end because it's corrupting for Israelis. He promises that if he becomes prime minister "there will not be a single hungry child" in Israel, and that he will raise the minimum wage to $1,000 a month.

His political opponents on the right and in the center paint Peretz as a dangerous peacenik and Bolshevik who will take untenable risks with the Palestinians and whose radical populism will destroy the economy, which after the Sharon government"s free-market reforms has pulled out of a deep recession to show impressive growth.

For now, however, Peretz is getting sympathetic press. Several pundits praise him for being ready to go for a final peace deal and drop Sharon's conditioning of peace talks on the dismantling of Palestinian terrorist groups.