Forget Palin, the Golda Meir is here!

Touted as the new Golda Meir, former Mossad agent-turned-politician Tzipi Livni emerged last night as the new head of Israel’s ruling party and was set to become the Jewish state’s second woman Prime Minister, less than a decade after she first entered parliament.

"The good guys won," Ms Livni told her supporters.

Livni offers new hope for peace process
Tzipi Livni set to become new Israeli PM
Earlier, Ms Livni had declared victory when, to cheers and applause from supporters in her campaign nerve centre, exit polls appeared to show that she would easily cruise to victory over Mr Mofaz, a more conservative and hawkish former general, garnering only about 37 percent.

Mr Olmert phoned his successor to congratulate her and Ms Livni told the party faithful: “You have fought like lions. The best have won. I will do my utmost not to disappoint you. I want to do what’s best for the country.”

Ms Livni had run a successful Barack Obama-style campaign as the candidate for change, while Mr Mofaz was seen as less likely to commit to any of the compromises that backers of a swift peace accord deem necessary to end decades of conflict.

“You can determine today if you really have had enough of old-time politics. Come and vote, bring your children, and show them how you are changing the country,” Ms Livni said as she cast her own ballot.

Her meteoric rise has led Ms Livni across the political spectrum, from her pedigree as daughter of nationalist militants in the anti-British Irgun underground movement to the hard-right politics of the Likud Party, and now to the point where she could potentially find herself the leader who seals a peace deal with the Palestinians.

The Times