Israeli Labor party leader Shelly Yachimovich lost primary elections for the party leadership to Isaac Herzog.
The 53-year-old Herzog, a veteran lawmaker, is a former Cabinet minister and high-profile lawyer, and the son of former Israeli President Chaim Herzog.
He won 58 percent of the vote in the leadership primary compared with 41 percent for Yachimovich, who led the party for two years. In total, some 28,473 people cast their vote out of 60,392 registered voters within Labor.
Under Yachimovich, jobs and the economy featured prominently on the agenda of Labor, Israel’s main opposition party. That emphasis, some argued, came at the expense of the party’s promotion of peace deals with the Palestinians. — jta