Romania-born Colette Avital has submitted her candidacy for the Presidency of Israel officially. A member of the Labor Party of Defense minister Amir Peretz, she was born in Bucharest in 1940 and emigrated to Israel ten years later. She is the first woman to run for the seat of Israeli president.
Avital faces Likud deputy Reuven Rivlin and deputy prime minister Simon Peres, both seen as better placed in the campaign than Colette.
According to the Ynetnews.com website, Avital may rely on the votes of 20 of the 120 Israeli MPs.
She started her career as a public servant at the Israeli Foreign Ministry and evolved to plenipotentiary minister to Paris, Ambassador to Portugal, consul general to New York and deputy director within the Foreign Ministry. She was first elected in the Knesset for the Labor Party in 1999.
