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JERUSALEM — New Labor Party leader Ehud Barak says he does not plan to join a national unity government or to form a shadow Cabinet.

But Barak, elected to chair the Labor Party last week, said he will set up action teams paralleling the Likud government's ministries.

Barak detailed his plans shortly after the official Labor leadership primary results were released.

Barak is a former war hero who was chief of staff, then entered politics about two and a half years ago as interior minister under Yitzhak Rabin. Then Shimon Peres named Barak foreign minister. Barak got slightly more than 50 percent of the Labor vote.

As a relative hawk in the Labor camp, he is considered the strongest challenger to Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu in the year 2000.

Yossi Beilin, one of the leading negotiators of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, came away with 28.5 percent; Shlomo Ben-Ami with 14.2 percent, and Ephraim Sneh, 6.6 percent. Some 70 percent of the 166,000 registered party members voted.

Barak did best in the kibbutzim, moshavim and the Arab sector. The kibbutz movement is Labor's largest membership sector, with over 30,000 eligible voters.

Beilin supporters let it be known that their man regards himself as Labor's No. 2 and that he will not yield this position to contender Haim Ramon.

On joining a unity coalition with Likud, Barak said he remains opposed to the idea.

The Likud coalition is not a government that should be strengthened, but one which should be brought down, Barak said.

But sources close to Barak did not discount the possibility of such a government if Netanyahu runs into trouble with his coalition on future pullbacks in the West Bank.

Barak said he would hold a series of consultations with his primary rivals and supporters and other forces in the party, planning to set up leadership teams and crews to tackle specific areas of interest.

Barak has gone to the Western Wall to visit the grave of Rabin, who had brought him into his cabinet in 1995.

Barak has also asked for an audience with Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, mentor of the ultra-religious Sephardic Shas Party, which has 10 seats in the Knesset and remains a political force to be reckoned with.