Barak in runoff to lead Labour Party

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak yesterday won the first round of the Israeli Labour Party's leadership election and will face an ex-security chief in a runoff vote next month, official results showed.

Although Barak and former secret service chief Ami Ayalon have called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to quit over his handling of last year's Lebanon war, both have stopped short of saying they would pull Labour out of his governing coalition.

Official results with all but one polling station counted showed Barak with 36 percent of the vote to Ayalon's 31 percent, short of the 40 percent needed to avoid a June 12 runoff.