Former Labor chairman elected as Israel's next president

JERUSALEM -- Israel's former Labor chairman and opposition leader Isaac Herzog was chosen by the parliament on Wednesday to be the next Israeli president.

Speaker of the Knesset (parliament) Yariv Levin announced in a broadcast statement that Herzog was elected after winning votes of 87 lawmakers while his rival Miriam Peretz, a conservative educator and a settler, won the votes of 26 lawmakers.

Herzog, 60, is the chairman of the Jewish Agency, a major Jewish nonprofit organization, and the son of Israel's sixth President Chaim Herzog. In the 2013 national elections, he ran against incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but failed.

In his first televised address after being elected, Herzog said he intends "to build bridges" within the Israeli divided society and with the Jewish diaspora and "to keep safe the foundations of our democracy."

The newly elected president would be sworn in at an official ceremony in July, when President Reuven Rivlin is due to retire after the end of his seven-year term.

The role of the president in Israel is mainly ceremonial with little executive power. The president of Israel is elected for seven years and cannot serve more than a single term.