TEL AVIV (May 17) - Center Party leader Yitzhak Mordechai announced yesterday - citing many hours of discussions with colleagues, family, and friends, together with considerable introspection - that he had decided to quit the premiership race.

Speaking to dozens of journalists in Tel Aviv, Mordechai called on his supporters to vote for One Israel leader Ehud Barak as prime minister and "to strengthen the Center Party" Knesset list.

Surrounded by virtually all the party's top 20 Knesset candidates, Mordechai explained his decision.

He expressed concern that should the election campaign be prolonged for 15 days to allow for a premiership runoff, there could be a serious escalation in violence and hatred.

Further, the latest surveys showed that should Mordechai withdraw, it is highly likely that Barak would win in the first round of voting.

"Given the figures presently available, one must give MK Ehud Barak an opportunity," he said, urging "friends and voters to think logically. The Likud is no longer the home it once was."

Mordechai said he made his decision alone and it was not based on any offers to cut deals with either Barak or Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Indeed, he added, he has not spoken to either the One Israel or Likud leaders since his television debate with Netanyahu last month.

"Please understand my decision," he said directly to party activists and potential voters.

However, immediately following the news conference, some of the party's Knesset candidates were already saying their local activists will feel extremely let down by Mordechai and some would "decide to punish him in the polling booths."

The noticeable absentees from Mordechai's news conference were MKs David Magen and Hagai Merom, who joined the party from the Right and Left respectively and in all probability will not be reelected.

Asked about his future, Mordechai refused to say whether he would like to be the next defense minister. "At present I don't perceive myself as a candidate for any portfolio," he said. "Should the matter be decided in the first round, then on the 18th [tomorrow] there'll be a chance to talk. I didn't come [to the Center Party] for portfolios."

The party's pollster, Kalman Gayer, stressed that throughout the campaign Mordechai had not asked for opinion polls that would be "overly optimistic. He just wanted to know the truth."

In the early stages of the campaign, Gayer said, his figures were less positive than those published in the newspapers. While those polls put Mordechai's support at 20-22 percent, the Center's polls at the time suggested a more cautious 17%-18%.

Now, said Gayer, the figures suggested Mordechai had little alternative other than to pull out, in order to ensure Netanyahu's defeat in the first round.

Should the incumbent prime minister lose the election, much of Barak's success will be the result of Mordechai's donkey work, party No. 4 Roni Milo said. "It was only since the television debate that Netanyahu has begun to plummet [in the polls]."

While late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's son Yuval announced Saturday that he was switching his support from Mordechai to Barak, his sister Dalia Rabin-Pelosoff said she has no regrets about joining the Center and hopes the party receives as many seats as possible.

In response to media reports last night that President Ezer Weizman had urged Mordechai to step down, the Center Party leader last night said, "I did not discuss nor even have a word with the president of the State during the last two weeks."