Livni vies to unite party after leadership vote win
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni sought yesterday to restore unity within Israel's governing Kadima party as new rifts emerged in the wake of her narrow victory in the party's leadership election.
She called a meeting of top party members at which she was expected to stress the need to close ranks as the centrist party seeks to form a new coalition government.
Livni won Wednesday's vote to replace scandal-plagued Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as party leader but she may struggle to find enough coalition partners to command a parliamentary majority and avert early elections.
She already faced her first challenge just hours after winning the vote with a lead of just one percentage point over her main rival, Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz.
Evidently disgruntled, Mofaz, a hawkish former army chief, announced on Thursday he will take a break from politics, a move Israeli media called a "bombshell."
Senior figures in Kadima defined Mofaz's decision as "crushing the party," the Maariv daily said, amid media speculation the minister could return to the right-wing opposition Likud party that he, Livni and Olmert left in 2005.
Livni, a 50-year-old former Mossad spy who has been leading the US-backed peace negotiations with the Palestinians, will have 42 days to form a new coalition if early parliamentary elections are to be avoided.
At Friday's Kadima meeting, which was marked by the absence of Mofaz, she made it clear she hoped to maintain the current alliance with the centre-left Labour party and the religious party Shas.
"There is no reason to change the set-up of the coalition," she said.
Labour members have reportedly sent out mixed messages, with some demanding a renegotiation of coalition agreements and party leader Ehud Barak calling for snap elections.
Barak, who is also defence minister, had previously threatened to bring down the government unless Olmert quit but had relented when the beleaguered premier announced he would go.
Comments