New Israeli PM?

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail web site, is some news:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080917.wisraelipm0917/BNStory/International/home

Israeli ruling party elects new leader

MARK MACKINNON

Globe and Mail Update
September 17, 2008 at 3:53 PM EDT

TEL AVIV — Israel's popular Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has won the leadership of the centrist Kadima party and is poised to become the country's second-ever female prime minister, according to a series of exit polls.

Three separate polls, conducted by different Israeli television channels, all found that Ms. Livni had won between 43 and 48 per cent of the vote in the first round of Kadima's leadership primary Wednesday, enough to ensure there will be no second ballot. All three polls showed ex-army chief and Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz finishing second with just over 37 per cent of the vote, while two other candidates trailed well behind.

If confirmed by official results, the victory will mean that Ms. Livni is one step closer to becoming Israel's first female prime minister since Golda Meir resigned in 1974. As leader of the largest party in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, she will have 42 days to try and cobble together a governing coalition, thereby avoiding a general election.

The leadership race was triggered when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced last month that he was stepping down in the face of numerous corruption allegations. His successor will take over numerous difficult files, including stalled peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, tentative, indirect talks with Syria's leadership, how to deal with Iran's nuclear program and a domestic economy suddenly imperilled by the global financial crisis.


“Today we can start to make the change that Israel needs in order to once again be what it should be, what it can be,” Ms. Livni told Israeli Army Radio during the voting Wednesday morning. “I know what this country needs ... to continue the process that will allow us to determine the borders of the state of Israel with security.”

The leadership race was in many ways a study in contrasting styles and nearly diametrically opposed policies, particularly when it comes to resolving the decades-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Ms. Livni has been Israel's lead negotiator through year-old peace talks with the Palestinian Authority, while Mr. Mofaz has criticized the process as a waste of time and attacked Ms. Livni for negotiating towards the partition of Jerusalem, the city both sides claim as their capital but which many Israelis view as indivisible.

Ms. Livni, 50, is blonde and glamourous, an ex-Mossad agent who seems to have charmed the diplomatic community and much of the foreign press. If she wins, Ms. Livni will have a chance to become Israel's first female prime minister since Golda Meir resigned in 1974 The 59-year-old Mr. Mofaz, meanwhile, is a balding ex-army chief of Iranian descent who had kept a relatively low public profile until he entered the leadership race. Until recently, he was best-known for his heavy handed tactics in crushing the last Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Most polls ahead of yesterday's vote gave Ms. Livni a commanding lead. Nonetheless, Mr. Mofaz confidently told his supporters this week that he expected a first-ballot victory. Bizarrely, he predicted he would take precisely 43.7 per cent of the vote.

Even if her victory in the leadership primary is eventually confirmed, Ms. Livni's ascension to the prime minister's chair is far from certain. Cobbling together a governing coalition could prove a tricky task, as several parties that have supported Mr. Olmert since his election in 2006 have suggested they will put a high price for continued participation in the government, likely by demanding top cabinet posts. If they fail to form a government in that time, President Shimon Peres would call for fresh elections.

Both Kadima and the left-wing Labour Party are seen as wanting to avoid such a situation, since opinion polls suggest a new election would bring the right-wing Likud party, headed by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, back to power.

While Mr. Olmert has pledged to resign as soon as Kadima chooses a new leader, he could stay in power for some time yet. He will serve as interim leader while his successor tries to form a coalition. Should those efforts fail, he would remain also in office throughout the subsequent election period, which could last as long as another 90 days.

She is, I believe in the "land for peace" camp. That means she might be amenable to a deal with Syria - a peace treaty for the Golan heights, à la the Begin/Sadat deal back in 1979. If here is a peace in place with Syria it makes action against Iran easier.

 

[tomahawk6]

I dont see Livni being able to form a government. Barak and Netanyahu have hatched a deal along with the Shas Party to form a government.Together they will have more MP's than Kadima. A tilt to the right is just what Israel needs to confront the threat that Israel is facing.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Ottawa Citizen, is another report on Tzipi Livni’s prospects:

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=407d26e4-78e4-46a7-9c85-8c67c42485b1

New Israeli leader must hurry to form coalition

Matthew Fisher, Canwest News Service

Published: Friday, September 19, 2008

JERUSALEM - With only six weeks to forge a new coalition in Israel or face national elections, Tzipi Livni will have little time to savour winning the Kadima leadership early yesterday.

To succeed the disgraced Ehud Olmert and become Israel's 13th prime minister, the former secret agent, lawyer and serving foreign minister must win over 32 members of Israel's incredibly Byzantine Knesset in order to form a coalition with Kadima's 29 deputies.

"The national mission we have is to quickly create stability," Ms. Livni told reporters in Tel Aviv before returning to Jerusalem. "This responsibility is not just mine, but inside Kadima and members of the Knesset."

The process of wooing potential coalition partners and millions of Israeli voters began within hours of the official announcement of her narrow victory.

Whether she is successful at building a coalition or not, at some point between February and 2010, she must face an election against Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Likud and a hardliner who has very different views about the peace process between Israel and Palestine.

"It should not be left up to registered Kadima voters alone" to decide who the next prime minister is, Mr. Netanyahu said yesterday in demanding that Ms. Livni call a snap election. "The people should decide who will lead them. Anyone who fears the people's choice is not fit to lead."

No matter what Mr. Netanyahu wants, it is extremely unlikely that Ms. Livni will go to the polls for at least several months, if she can avoid doing so by forming a new coalition.

The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, which has been discussing a U.S.-backed peace deal with Ms. Livni since last fall, had little to say about the Kadima leadership race throughout the campaign.

"At the end of the day, we want to make peace with all Israelis, not with this party or that party or that person or this person," chief negotiator Sayed Erekat told the BBC yesterday. "I hope that once the dust settles down in Israel, whether they are going to form a government of national unity, a new one or have early elections, that we will stay the course of peace and negotiation."

A greater Israel from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River is an ideology that Ms. Livni imbibed as the daughter of Zionist parents who fought the British to create the Jewish state. But a few years ago she did an about-face. Staring at a rapidly growing Palestinian population living within Israel and the territories, she became a believer in a two-state solution.

But her position on Iran, Hamas, Gaza and the peace talks are not why she was elected as the new leader of Kadima. Nor was it because she closely identified herself with women's issues as U.S. presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton did. The fact that she is a woman barely figured in her leadership campaign.

Kadima members backed the stylish, modestly dressed 50-year-old mother of two because she is squeaky clean in a political culture that has become the subject of derision. Serious allegations, charges and convictions have been levied against a string of major political figures, including former president Moshe Katsav, former prime minister Ariel Sharon and the incumbent, Mr. Olmert, who, police have alleged, received hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign donations.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2008​