Barak's embattled Labor ranks record low: Poll

Israel's decades-strong Labor party is taking a nosedive as poor poll results show its popularity far lower than its rivals Likud and Kadima.

According to a poll published in the Yediot Aharonot daily on Friday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak's center-left party would only get seven seats in Israel's 120-strong parliament if elections were held today.

The survey indicates a further fall for the traditionally-popular Labor whose plummeting approval earned it no more than 13 lawmakers in the February elections.

The Labor's fall seemed to be a gain for the hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ultra-rightist Likud party, which would get 33 seats, according to the poll.

Former foreign minister Tzipi Livni's centrist Kadima would get 28 and 12 would go to her successor Avigdor Lieberman's Israel Beitenu, it added.

The survey was conducted among 500 people with an error margin of 4.5 percent.

The result takes Labor, which was in power in Israel from 1948 to 1977, down to Israel's fifth party, after the orthodox Shas and the far-right Israel Beitenu.