Tel Aviv  - The Likud, the hardline opposition party currently leading in opinion polls to win the February 10 Israeli election, announced the official results of its primary early Tuesday morning in Tel Aviv.

Likud caucus leader Gideon Sa'ar won the second spot on the party's list of parliamentary candidates, after hawkish former premier Benyamin Netanyahu, whose place as number one had already been secured in a separate contest for the party's leadership in late 2005.

An extreme-right activist, Moshe Feiglin, who Netanyahu had hoped would not make it to a ranking spot, came in at 20th place, giving him a good chance of making it into Israel's parliament, the Knesset.

Opinion polls published last month predicted the Likud could win as many as 34 mandates in the 120-seat Knesset, and beat the centrist, ruling Kadima party of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, although the two are still running a close race.

Likud legislators Gilad Erdan and Reuven Rivlin made it to the third and fourth spot on the list, while former science minister Benni Begin, the son of late Israeli premier Menahem Begin, came in fifth.

Former foreign minister Silvan Shalom, considered another internal rival of Netanyahu's, secured the seventh spot.

"Today we elected a new leadership for Israel," Netanyahu told party activists at an exhibition ground in Tel Aviv shortly after the results of Monday's vote were announced. The list chosen, he said, was the "best team any party can present in our state."

Listing his priorities, Netanyahu said: "First of all there is a global economic crisis which is threatening the jobs and savings of Israel's citizens and which requires a response."

"Daily security threats in the south and north" and a "political crisis of trampling without direction," also required a response, he said.

He was referring to the Annapolis peace process with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, which he has charged is going nowhere and is premature, as well as to rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip and the reported rearmament of Lebanon's Hezbollah along Israel's northern border.

Feiglin's election to number 20 on the list was considered a blow to Netanyahu, who had acted against the ultra-nationalist leader of the "Jewish leadership" movement entering parliament on behalf of the Likud, fearing a strong showing by him and his supporters will allow other parties to portray the Likud as ultra-right and would drive away potential centrist voters.

Feiglin has charged that the Likud has drifted leftward from its ideological roots.

He told Israel Radio Tuesday morning that his election to a spot on the Likud Knesset list was "not a victory" over Netanyahu, but vowed to bring the "entire (ultra-)nationalist camp" in Israel into the Likud. (dpa)