Laborites adjusting to life without Peres

Shimon Peres left, yet the show must go on: Many veteran members of the Mapai party, Labor's predecessor, turned up at the Labor party branch in Givataim to vote for the party’s list of candidates for parliament on Tuesday, but few could hide their longing for one of Mapai’s founders and a Labor party icon: Shimon Peres.

Still, the idea of following in the footsteps of Peres, who defected from Labor to Kadima, is unthinkable.

“The situation is very bad. When Peres left, I cried for three days, but I am obliged to stay in the Labor party. It is not the same party anymore but it is my party,” Yitzhak Aflalo, a Labor member for last 50 years, told Ynet.

While many like Aflalo wish Peres were still in the party, others hold a grudge against the former prime minister and Nobel Prize Laureate for abandoning the party. Tzipora Lerner says she has been a Labor member since age 15.

“I wish Peres had left 10 years ago, it would have been better. He brought nothing but trouble. He started with Yitzhak Rabin and finished with Amir Peretz,” Lerner said.

'Kadima is not a real party'

Former newscaster Shelly Yechimovitz, who abandoned a successful career in broadcasting to run for a Labor seat in the Knesset, reassured skeptical voters that Peres’ departure will not impinge on the Party’s showing in the March 28 general elections.

“Kadima is not a real party. It has no vision and I have confidence in the political judgments of the citizens of the State of Israel,” Yechimovitz said.

“I have no doubt that voters undecided whether to vote for Labor or Kadima will return home to Labor. Pensioners for example have no party with plans to care for them like the Labor party,” she added.

Yaakov Lieder, a pensioner and a veteran Labor member, says Peres’ defection to Kadima has not had an effect on his commitment to Labor.

Reiterating Yechimovitz’ belief in Labor as the true home for many pensioners, Leider said “we cannot live in an Eskimo culture and time has come for the finance ministry to ensure pensioners are not hurt by fiscal policies. Pensioners have done a lot for the State and the economy but many have to choose between medicine and bread.”