Labor Party Primary Election

The post of the party leader is one of the most prominent positions in modern parliamentary democracies. A politician who aspires to be prime minister must first win his party’s leadership. Therefore, the systems of electing party leaders are of great importance. The most important characteristic of each system is the electing body (the selectorate). Electing bodies differ from one another by their level of inclusiveness. There are four common electing bodies:

1. On the more exclusive end of the spectrum, there is the possibility for the leader to be elected by the party’s representatives in the parliament. This is a very reasonable possibility in parliamentary regimes, since the members of parliament are the main audience with whom the leader comes in contact; he or she works with them and needs their cooperation. In the past, all British parties used to elect their leaders by this method, but they have since expanded the election procedure and it is now more inclusive. The major parties in Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland still choose their leaders by this system.
2. A more common possibility is to include more people in electing the leader, and to grant selection right to members of the party’s elected institution, such as a central committee, conference, or congress. The two largest German parties – the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Christian Democrats (CDU) – choose their leaders in the Federal Party Congress, a body numbering some 500 representatives in the case of the SPD, and over 1,000 in the case of the CDU. Other parties, such as the Socialists in Spain and the Social Democrats in Sweden, choose their leaders in this intermediate level of broad party institutions.
3. Many parties have recently expanded the circle of electors to include all party members. This selection by the party members is also known as “closed primaries” or “party primaries.” The expansion of the circle of electors is a phenomenon that can be found in parties in a number of democratic countries, including Britain, Japan, Canada, and Israel.
4. Finally, it is possible to award the election right to all registered voters (the electorate), but this is very rare in parliamentary elections. In 2005, the leader of the left wing coalition in Italy (L’Unione), Romano Prodi, was elected in this type of election by over four million voters.

Over the years, a process took place in the Labor Party (and previously, in Mapai) of expanding the body that selects party leaders. In 1963, Mapai was compelled to face the task of choosing a leader after the resignation of David Ben-Gurion from the post of prime minister and party leader. The identity of his successor was not in dispute; since the 1950s and early 1960s, Levi Eshkol had established his position as the number two figure in the Mapai leadership. At that time, the party constitution did not specify a formal procedure for selecting a successor. On the evening that Ben-Gurion announced his resignation, the leaders of Mapai convened for an informal consultation at the home of Foreign Minister Golda Meir. After Ben-Gurion was urged to change his mind but refused, a meeting was scheduled for the following day. The meeting was attended by members of the Secretariat and Eshkol was elected unanimously as the candidate. Mapai Central Committee ratified the choice that day. Shortly after Eshkol’s appointment, Mapai amended the party constitution. The amendments determined that the party’s candidate for prime minister would be selected by the party’s Central Committee.

The first open race for the post of party leader was held in 1965 in the party’s Central Committee: 179 members (63.5%) voted for Eshkol, while 103 supported Ben-Gurion. As a result, Ben-Gurion left Mapai along with a large number of his supporters, and they ran in the Knesset elections that year on a new list named Rafi (“Israeli Workers List”). When Eshkol died in early 1969, there was no race for appointing a replacement – Golda Meir was appointed to the post after consultation among the Labor Party leadership.

Meir’s resignation in 1974, as a result of the publication of the Agranat Commission, marked the start of a series of races between Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres:

• The first race, in 1974, was held in the party’s Central Committee, and Rabin won by a majority of 298 to 254 votes.
• The second was held in 1977, this time in the party conference, and Rabin won once again by a small margin – 1,445 to 1,404 votes.
• The third race was held in 1980 in the party conference, and this time Peres gained the upper hand – 2,123 to 875 votes.
• The fourth race was held in 1992, where, for the first time in a format of party primaries, the right to vote was given to all party members.
• After Rabin’s murder, elections were not held, and the appointment of Peres as the party’s chairman and candidate for prime minister was approved by the party’s Central Committee.
  Since then, four more races have been held in the form of primaries (see table below).

The rules by which the primaries were conducted then have remained the same: For a candidate to win, he or she had to gain a majority of at least 40%. If no candidate reached this threshold, a second round would be held in which the two leading candidates would contend. In practice, a second round has not been necessary until the recent contest.

Primary Elections in the Labor Party, 1992-2005

* At the end of the ballot count, Burg won by a tiny margin, but following allegations of fraud in polling stations, a prolonged legal battle ensued, at the end of which it was determined that a repeat vote would be held in 40 polling stations that were in question. The repeat vote was held on December 26 that year, and Ben-Eliezer ultimately succeeded in overturning the results and defeating Burg.

Note: Shimon Peres was elected as temporary chairman in June 2003. The “temporary” nature of the post lasted for over two years.

Today, the three large parties in Israel (Kadima, Labor, and the Likud) elect their leaders by means of the primary system.* The election of a party leader by all the members can be seen as compatible with democratic values – it provides an opportunity for many participants to take part in the election process, brings the parties closer to their supporters, directly reflects the will of the members, encourages more active political participation, and neutralizes the political power of party activists. Such an election system may also benefit the elected leader – his or her mandate and the credit granted to him or her are enhanced when he/she is elected by an inclusive body.

However, it is important to recognize the weaknesses of the primary system, and it should be noted that past experience shows that it has also brought undesirable phenomena with it in the past. For example – granting the right to vote to all party members in a comprehensive manner, without restrictions such as minimal membership time and payment of membership dues, could create phenomena such as “instant members.” This phenomenon is manifested in the vigorous activity of “vote contractors,” who also recruit to the party ranks citizens whose link to the party and its path is tenuous, just so that they will support a particular candidate. These citizens do not remain party members after the primaries. This phenomenon could harm the party, and it adversely affects the long-time, devoted members and activists.

Selecting the leader in a large body is also a very expensive undertaking. Candidates who have to obtain the support of tens of thousands of party members must mobilize extensive financial resources, thereby increasing their dependency on wealthy contributors. Violations of election funding laws have become very common in the age of the primaries. Without regulating election funding, restricting permitted expenditures, and effectively enforcing the laws and regulations, the race could become limited and include only candidates with high financial and organizational abilities. This could damage competitiveness and accessibility.

* Kadima has not yet elected a leader in a party primary, but the party bylaws state that this is the future method of election.

Bar, Eliza. 1996. Primaries and Other Methods of Candidate Selection. Tel Aviv: The Israel Democracy Institute and HaKibbutz Hameuchad. 

Kenig, Ofer. 2006. "Election and Rejection of Party Leaders: Israel from a comparative perspective," In Gideon Rahat ed., Selecting Candidates in Israel: In Theory and Practice [Hebrew]. Tel-Aviv: The David Horowitz Research Institute on Society and Economy, pp. 37-58.

Punnett, R.M. 1992. Selecting the Party Leader: Britain in Comparative Perspective, London: Harvester-Wheatsheaf.

Rahat, Gideon, and Reuven Y. Hazan. "Candidate Selection Methods: An Analytical Framework", 2001. Party Politics, 7(3): 297–322.