Barak to Resign as Labor Party Leader

Defeated Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak announced Tuesday night that he will resign as leader of the Labor party and a member of the Knesset (parliament).

Conceding his defeat in a nationally-televised speech, Barak, holding up his tears, said he respects the "verdict of democracy." He also expressed congratulations to the winner, his right-wing opponent, Likud leader Ariel Sharon.

"We have lost the battle, but we will win the campaign," said the battered and defiant Barak. He urged his followers to continue the peace efforts.

"As I bear responsibility for the diplomatic moves of my government and believe in the vital need for them, from a historical standpoint, it is my intention, after the establishment of a new government, to resign from the Knesset and from my position as chairman of the Labor party."

Barak said that he would remain as a member of the Labor party in the foreseeable future and would "leave political and diplomatic activity for a time."

Exit polls broadcast by Israel's TV networks earlier Tuesday night gave Sharon a crushing victory of 19 percentage points over Barak.

Barak did not rule out the possibility that his Labor party may join a national unity government with Sharon's Likud. The Prime Minister-elect Sharon had urged Barak and his party to join such a coalition.

Commenting on Sharon's victory, Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, an architect of the 1993 peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians, said that by crowning the Likud leader prime minister, Israelis had made "their biggest political gamble since 1948."

Beilin said that the task of the peace camp was to ensure that Sharon's victory was nothing more than "a passing episode."

Analysts here predicted that Sharon, facing the same situation in the Knesset as Barak did in the past, would form a narrow-based government. But many fear Sharon's government would probably be short-lived.

Naomi Chazan, a lawmaker of the left-wing Meretz party, a Labor partner which has 10 seats in the Knesset, told Xinhua that her party will not join Sharon's Likud party in a unity government.

The latest statistics showed that 62 percent of eligible Israeli voters showed up to cast their ballot Tuesday, an exceptionally low turnout as compared with previous elections.

Barak failed to gain the support of Israeli Arabs, who helped him win the 1999 elections but abandoned him this time because they held him responsible for the killing of 13 Israeli Arab youths by Israeli soldiers four months ago.

Sharon said a vote for him was a vote for "an undivided Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty" and he "will keep Jerusalem, united and undivided as the capital of the Jewish people, the capital of Israel forever."

Many voters were disillusioned by Barak's failure to contain the current spiral of violence which has killed nearly 400 people, most Palestinians. Barak was also blamed for making too many concessions to Palestinians in the peace negotiations.

Barak resigned on December 10 as prime minister after 18 months in office, amid clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops, sparked by Sharon's provocative visit to a disputed shrine in East Jerusalem on September 28.

Barak failed to deliver on his promise to reach a peace deal with Palestinians. He offered Palestinians an independent state in some 95 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including a share of Jerusalem and the dismantling of many Jewish settlements. But the two sides could not agree on how to share Jerusalem, and the Palestinians insisted on the right of millions of refugees to return to Israel.

Sharon has taken a hard line in the Middle East peace process. He repeatedly vowed to reject the concessions Barak has so far made in negotiations with the Palestinians if he wins the election.

He is notorious to the Arabs for his role in the Palestinian refugee camp massacres during Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

He was also blamed for setting ablaze the ongoing violence between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers.








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