Israel Re-Elects Weizman
Israel's popular president was re-elected to a second five-year term Wednesday, defeating a surprisingly strong challenge by a small-town mayor from the ruling Likud Party.
Ezer Weizman won 63 votes in the 120-member parliament, while Shaul Amor, favored by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, received 49 votes. Seven legislators abstained.
During his first term, Weizman, 73, won Israel's heart with his irreverent approach to the ceremonial post and his ability to express the nation's mood during the roller-coaster years of peace accords and suicide-bombings.
The Moroccan-born Amor, 57, made a surprisingly strong showing, campaigning on ethnicity and saying it was time for a president from the disadvantaged Sephardi community.
The 120 legislators started voting in a secret ballot shortly after 11 a.m., and results were announced less than two hours later.
Weizman, of the opposition Labor Party, is a prominent member of Israel's Ashkenazi elite of European-born Jews. His uncle, Chaim, was Israel's first president. Ezer Weizman has served as air force commander and defense minister and played a key role in negotiating Israel's peace agreement with Egypt.
But a sharp tongue and a tendency to meddle where he wasn't wanted also won Weizman a long list of enemies on both sides of the Israeli political spectrum.
Leah Rabin, widow of slain prime minister and Labor party leader Yitzhak Rabin, has come out in support of Amor, apparently because she is still angry at Weizman for telling reporters that on the eve of the 1967 war, Rabin, then the army's chief of staff, suffered a nervous breakdown. The story haunted Rabin for the remainder of his career.
Weizman has also angered Netanyahu by publicly prodding him to do more in the Mideast peace process. When U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Israel last fall, Weizman told her that she should knock heads together to get the stalled negotiations moving again.
By JACK KATZENELL, Associated Press Writer. ©1998 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed