Israel’s Labor Party on Sunday elected as its new leader Knesset member Merav Michaeli. Michaeli won 77 percent of the approximately 10,000 votes in the party’s primary, held ahead of the country’s March 23 Knesset elections, the fourth round in two years.
The vote followed the resignation last month of Labor leader Amir Peretz, who serves as economy minister in the current government.
In an interview with Kan Radio on Monday, Michaeli said that her first move as Labor leader would be to leave Netanyahu’s coalition.
Following Michaeli’s win, a Channel 13 poll on Sunday night showed the Labor Party just barely passing the electoral threshold, contrary to previous surveys conducted over the past three months indicating that it would not make it into the Knesset.