Last update - 00:00 14/06/2007
Ayalon not to dispute results of Labor primary but may call for probe
By Yuval Azoulay and Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondents
Ami Ayalon will not challenge the results of the Labor primary, but he is considering asking the police or the State Comptroller to investigate suspicions of irregularities in Arab and Druze sector ballots, he said Wednesday.
Leading figures in Ayalon's campaign insisted that they had "clear evidence" of a long series of irregularities in the vote in the Arab and Druze sectors, and said they planned to turn to the party institutions in order to challenge the results.
However, Ayalon decided to concede defeat, and instructed his aides to focus their efforts on evaluating whether a complaint should be filed with the police or with the State Comptroller's office.
Ayalon would like to avoid anything that would undermine the party, sources close to him said Wednesday.
The chairman of Labor's election committee, Judge Amnon Strasnov, rejected the claims of the Ayalon campaign, arguing that there is no proof that any violations had taken place.
However, Ayalon campaign activists maintained that there had been violations in the town of Yifia, where a camera was allegedly overlooking the ballot, while in Julis they maintain that some of the envelopes were marked. There were also claims that in Shfaram some of the envelopes had already been filled with notes with Ehud Barak's name. Similar claims were made for the ballots in Jaljulya, in Tira, and in Majdal Krum.
These claims were also rejected by members of the Barak campaign in those
communities.
"Our communities were marked because [Salah] Tarif and I are from here," Riad Hamze, head of Barak's campaign in the Druze sector, said Wednesday.
He was referring to the Druze community of Julis, and to former minister and Barak ally Salah Tarif, who was convicted of corruption in 2006.
"All sorts of provocateurs from the Ayalon camp came here from Tel Aviv and caused trouble," Hamze said, adding that the complaints of the Ayalon camp were rejected immediately by the chairman of the party's election committee.
Hamze explained that women came to vote with identity cards that did not have photographs, and that this stirred the suspicions of observers.
"This is authorized by the Interior Ministry. Religious Druze women are not photographed, and they have to accept this," he insisted.
Regarding the Arab sector, sources in the office of Culture Minister Ghaleb Majadele, who heads Labor's Arab district, said that he is not aware of any claims for forged votes.
"If someone claims forgeries, and also has proof, he should take his case to court," a source in his office said.
Meanwhile, a day after Ayalon's defeat Tuesday, his aides were busy trying to analyze the causes for the failure.
Barak received the endorsement of ministers, they say in Ayalon's camp, and some even blame a break from "media discipline" that senior figures, including Ayalon, practiced.
"Our line was very simple: talk about new leadership and renewal, but this was not always carried out because there was no management, there was no media discipline, and people did not stick to this line," a senior campaigner said. "It is amazing that everyone understood that loose tongues are not good for us, but they could not hold back."