A former defence minister and a one-time TV journalist squared off on Wednesday for the second round of a fight for the leadership of Israel's Labour party.

The once-mighty party, now reduced to eight seats in the 120-member parliament, has been without a chairman since Defence Minister Ehud Barak jumped ship in January to form the centrist Independence movement.

Polls across the country opened at 10:00 am (0700 GMT) and were to close 12 hours later, a Labour party statement said, with preliminary results expected shortly after voting ends and a finally tally after midnight (2100 GMT).

It said that, shortly after midday, 9.25 percent of the 66,310 Labour members eligible to cast a ballot had done so. Historically the bulk of voters tend to turn out in the evening, after work.

Members will choose between Shelly Yacimovich, 51, and Amir Peretz, 59. Two other candidates were eliminated in a first round last week in which Yacimovich won 32 percent of the vote, to Peretz's 31 percent.

Formerly a leading journalist and television presenter who was elected to parliament in 2006 under Peretz's patronage, Yacimovich has enjoyed extensive media support for her strong social agenda.

Peretz, who once headed Israel's Histadrut trades union federation, was defence minister during the 2006 Lebanon war, which claimed the lives of 1,200 people in Lebanon, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers, and was widely considered a failure by Israelis.

He stepped down as both defence minister and leader of the Labour party the following year.

"The two candidates who have reached the home stretch... have done so in a long and seemingly Sisyphean campaign, with boundless energy and unlimited ambition," the left-leaning Haaretz wrote in a commentary on Wednesday.

"Peretz proved once again what the political arena already knew -- he is an unparalleled campaigner. Like the phoenix, he arose from the ruins of his political career."