JERUSALEM - Amram Mitzna, an Israeli former general who has promised to resume peace talks with Yasser Arafat if he becomes Prime Minister, has secured the leadership of the Labour Party.
Party members were today voting to choose a leader to take them into January's elections.
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television exit poll gave Mr Mitzna, the dovish mayor of the coastal city of Haifa, 57 per cent of the vote, compared to 35 per cent for the current leader, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer. Haim Ramon, a legislator, was a distant third with 8 per cent.
Observers had thought Mr Ben-Eliezer, who has a far better organised party machine than Mr Mitzna, a newcomer to national politics, would have been better able to mobilise his supporters.
Mr Mitzna is unlikely to become prime minister.
The polls show Labour trailing the Likud Party of the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.
Mr Sharon faces his own leadership contest, against Benjamin Netanyahu, at the end of the month.
Mr Mitzna has campaigned on what is, in the current climate, a radical peace agenda.
He has said he will set a date for peace talks to succeed, and if they fail, would order a unilateral withdrawal from much of the occupied territories, and the evacuation of many Jewish settlements.
Yesterday he went further, pledging that he would order an immediate withdrawal from the Gaza Strip without waiting for peace talks.
- INDEPENDENT
