Labour legislators urge Barak to pull out of poll

But Barak said he would run even if he had only four supporters, Israel Radio reported. The calls to replace Barak come as polls at the weekend continued to show him lagging badly behind opposition challenger Ariel Sharon.

A Gallup poll published Friday in the Ma'ariv daily predicted that Barak would receive only 22 per cent of the vote compared with 50 per cent for Sharon, while a Dahaf Institute Poll in the Yediot Aharanot daily had Barak getting 32 per cent and Sharon 50 per cent. Both polls, however, found that Peres would narrowly defeat Sharon. The election is for the premiership only.

The Gallup-Ma'ariv poll predicted that Peres would beat Sharon by 46 per cent to 43 per cent while the Dahaf-Yediot poll saw Peres winning 49 per cent to Sharon's 44 per cent. The radio quoted Labour legislator Avi Yehezkiel as saying that if the polls continued to show a large gap in favour of Sharon, then Barak would have to concede and allow Peres to run.

Yehezkiel was also quoted in the Yediot Aharanot daily as saying that "If the Labour Party yearns for peace and life, we need to initiate a move to replace Barak." Another legislator, Yossi Katz, was quoted in the same paper as saying that "we are not prepared to let someone lead us to defeat."

He continued: "I am certain that if the peace process is dear to Barak he will rise to the occasion and make the right decision." Katz was one of the main backers last month of an abortive move to have Peres declare his candidacy. Peres said he wanted to be a candidate but was finally unable to obtain the backing of 10 legislators from a single faction, as required by law.

Labour Party officials also criticised a joint Barak-Peres appearance on television on Friday night, during which they tried to present themselves as a "winning team". "After the bitter race between them, the attempt to present a united front looked as if it was orchestrated and not real," one senior Labour Party member said in Yediot.

Another minister was even more scathing, saying that "Barak looked like a kid who brought his father with him to the television studio. All we needed was for Peres to give Barak his pacifier." Meanwhile, in another election-related development, a member of the Labour Party has petitioned the Israel Supreme Court to disqualify Sharon as a candidate because of his actions while defence minister during Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

The petition based its claim on an Israeli commission of inquiry into the massacre of Palestinian refugees at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut. Although the slaughter was carried out by Lebanese Christian militiamen, the commission found that Sharon bore indirect responsibilty and ruled he was unqualified to serve as minister of defence.

According to the Ha'aretz daily on Sunday, the petitioner, Shmuel Sa'adia, has argued that if Sharon cannot serve as minister of defence, he cannot serve either as prime minister.

(la/dpa)