Histadrut labor federation chairman Ofer Eini will apparently remain in charge
of the powerful union for another five years, according to preliminary results
of Tuesday’s race released Thursday.
The Histadrut's election committee said Thursday that after having counted 175,333 of the some 200,000 ballots cast in elections for the chairmanship of the union, incumbent Eini is leading his challenger, Labor MK Eitan Cabel, 66.5 percent to 33.4%.
Cabel expressed
outrage that preliminary results were revealed to the media. He said the
election committee and vote counters were biased in Eini’s favor.
“I am
not getting results in an organized way,” Cabel complained. “It is one big
theft. Everything is corrupt. You can’t rely on anything the [election
committee] does.”
Cabel’s associates accused Eini of “deciding the
results in advance.” They said there was no reason for the counting to take
place over three days.
“Everything we warned about has happened and more
so,” Cabel’s spokesman said. “There was so much corruption. If the
election was fair, the public would have chosen Cabel.”
Cabel’s campaign
called upon any worker who saw wrongdoing to report it. They vowed to take the
election committee to court “to save the dignity of this institution [the
Histadrut] that has been the victim of a mafia gang.”
The election
committee initially tried to prevent Cabel from running. It also disqualified
the candidacy of Labor MK Amir Peretz, a former Histadrut chairman who is a
fierce critic of Eini.
Preliminary results indicated that Eini’s Ogenim
list had received twice as many votes as Cabel’s Bayit Hevrati list.