Related: New Labor leader vows to pull party out of Sharon's coalition

    

Newly elected Labour Party leader Amir Peretz (C) speaks to reporters after laying a wreath at the late Yitzhak Rabin's gravesite in Jerusalem November 10, 2005.  (Xinhua/Reuters)

TEL AVIV, Nov. 10 (Xinhuanet) -- Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres lost the leadership of the Labor Party to a largely unknown trade union chief, official results of a ballot showed early Thursday.

    Shortly after 6 a.m. (0400 GMT), amid cheering from Amir Peretz's supporters, Labor Secretary-General Eitan Cabel announced at the party's headquarters in Tel Aviv that Peretz won with 42.35 percent of the votes, while Peres was backed by 39.96 percent of voters.

    The release of the final results was stalled by several hoursas the Labor Election Committee received several claims of fraud in polling stations in the Israeli town of Petah Tikva and headedearly Thursday morning to the vote counting center there.

    In a predawn press conference, Peres called on the Labor's legal institutions to look into claims of severe irregularities in polling stations in Sderot and Be'er Sheva, two strongholds for Peretz.

    "It is unreasonable that in communities where I had a majority I have now dropped to seven votes," Peres said.

    But several hours later, the election committee announced it had rejected Peres' claims of fraud and okayed the completion of the counting work in the remaining 13 polling stations of a total of 318.

    

Newly elected Labour Party leader Amir Peretz (L) and his wife Ahlama Peretz lay a wreath at the late Yitzhak Rabin's gravesite in Jerusalem November 10, 2005. (Xinhua/Reuters)

Peretz, 53, is to become the new leader of the Labor Party,replacing 82-year-old Peres, a Nobel peace prize laureate for peace deals with the Palestinians in the 1990s.

    The race, in which over 100,000 Labor Party members are eligible to cast their ballots, ran among three candidates.

    Another one was Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer.The results cast doubt over the longevity of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's coalition government.

    Peretz has vowed to pull the Labor Party out of the governing coalition under Sharon, while Peres had said he wanted the coalition to exist as long as possible.

    Peres brought his party into Sharon's government last year as a junior partner to help in the removal of settlements from occupied land Palestinians want for an independent state.

    Peretz, a passionate socialist born in Morocco, will become Labor's candidate for prime minister in the next general election.  Enditem