Shelly Yacimovich announces run for Labor chair
By GIL HOFFFMAN
LAST UPDATED: 02/28/2011 13:53
Labor MK says she'll run on a social-democratic platform; Herzog says her platform would turn Labor into a "niche party."
Labor MK Shelly Yacimovich announced that she was entering the Labor Party’s
leadership race on Monday, in an e-mail she sent some 7,000 Labor
activists.
Yacimovich joined MKs Isaac Herzog and Avishay Braverman as
candidates in the September 7 primary. MK Amir Peretz and Union of Local
Authorities in Israel chairman Shlomo Buhbut are expected to join the race
soon.
“When I head Labor, I will advance a social democratic agenda that
is socioeconomic, Zionist, responsible and fair,” Yacimovich wrote the
activists.
“Only by restoring these values can we bring about hope and
renewal and bring in new communities of voters from across the political
spectrum.”
Mocking her rivals for emphasizing war and peace, Yacimovich
said that “before we go to war to defend the state and before we make peace for
its citizens, we must make sure that we will have a state.”
She said
politicians who focused on diplomatic issues and not on helping people caused
great damage to the state.
Asked by The Jerusalem Post what her stance
was on diplomatic issues, she said she was in favor of reaching a diplomatic
agreement with the Palestinians while maintaining Israeli
security.
“Labor won’t merely spew slogans like ‘Two states for two
peoples,’” she said. “It will have a serious diplomatic
agenda.”
Yacimovich said it had been a tough decision to run, because
repairing the problems in Labor would be very difficult.
“Strategists
might tell me not to say this, but calling Labor a party that is seeking the
premiership is to blatantly disregard reality, and being detached won’t bring
victory,” she said. “Labor has to focus on rehabilitating itself and returning
to its roots, and only then focus on returning to power.”
Yacimovich
expressed hope that the race would be clean and not personal. But her opponents
did not refrain from expressing criticism.
“I am concerned about Labor
becoming a niche party,” Herzog said. “It has to be a party that has what to say
on socioeconomic and diplomatic issues, and it would be under me.”