Elections 2009 / Barak: I won't be defense minister if Labor fails to near 20-seat mark

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Defense Minister and Labor chair Ehud Barak said Monday he will not be defense minister in the new government should his party plummet in Tuesday's general election.

"People tell me: 'You should be defense minister,' but I want to say that I will not and could not be Israel's defense minister if Labor doesn't near the 20-seat mark," Barak said during a tree-planting ceremony in Kibbutz Mishmar Hasharon, where he grew up.

Barak then addressed left-of-center voters, urging them not to cast their vote for Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's Kadima Party.

"Only a strong Labor could be the answer to the right-wing bloc. Center- left people who vote for Kadima are taking a huge gamble," Barak said. "Over a third of Kadima candidates are ardent rightists."

A day before the elections, the prime-ministerial candidates have been working hard in a last-ditch effort to tilt the scale in their favor.

Labor is focusing on undecided voters who are leaning towards Kadima, as well as on the Arab-Israeli sector. Kadima hopes to trump Likud by having leftist voters defect to its camp, while Likud has adopted a hawkish stance, in the hopes of bringing back voters who support the hard-line Yisrael Beiteinu Party.

	Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
	Photo by: (Tomer Appelbaum)