Benjamin Netanyahu, shaken by Ariel Sharon's upset victory in a key Likud vote, said Tuesday that his defeat was due in part to Likud voters who had caved into pressure and offers of jobs from the prime minister's camp.

Sharon won Monday's Likud Central Committee vote on whether to hold an early party leader elections by a slim 104 vote margin. The 1,433 to 1,329 victory over Netanyahu, who pushed for the proposal to hold the primary in 60 days, puts a freeze on the struggle within the Likud until April, when the primaries are scheduled under the party constitution.

The turnout of the vote was high, as 91 percent, or 2,762 central committee members out of the listed 3,050 heeded Sharon's call by coming to cast their ballot.

According to local newspaper Haaretz, Netanyahu said Tuesday that the vote shows "a very, very impressive result."

The vote did not ratify Sharon's political views over his own, Netanyahu said. "There were, first of all, those who agreed with his path, but there were others who caved in to the pressures, the baits, the patronage jobs or other things."

Netanyahu said the result was likely to be different in the Likud primaries, in which the party's much larger rank-and-file membership is to vote.

"Here, (offers of) jobs don't work, and microphones don't work," a reference to a Sunday night incident in which Sharon's microphone failed just as the prime minister began his address. The incident was seen as shifting sympathy to Sharon.

Source: Xinhua