The winner was Yitzhak Rabin, who defeated incumbent Shimon Peres, as well as Yisrael Kessar and Ora Namir.

Peres was weakened from the backfiring of "the dirty trick", and polling showed Rabin to be the nation's most popular politician.

[7] However, one week later, on 22 July 1990, the 1,400 member Labor Party Central Committee voted 54 to 46% against holding an immediate leadership contest.

[6] At the same time that the party's Central Committee decided against holding a leadership election in the year 1990, it became evident that the next leadership election might feature additional (younger) contenders, and not just Peres and Rabin, with both Ora Namir and Moshe Shahal declaring that they intended to run for Labor Party leader.

[9] Israeli political commentators also widely believed that the party would have a stronger odds of electoral success under Rabin than under Peres.

[1] Rabin placed first, and managed to narrowly surpass the 40% threshold, thereby winning the leadership election outright in the initial round.