JERUSALEM, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- Israelis will be electing a new Knesset in February or March and a new ballgame is possible.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of the Likud and Vice Premier Shimon Peres of Labor have to decide whether to continue with their old parties, or form something new. Meanwhile Labor's new chairman Amir Perz is trying to shift the agenda from political-security issues that have dominated earlier election campaigns, to social-economic matters.
The decision to advance national elections from November 2006 to mid-February or March was made Thursday morning at a meeting between Sharon and Perz.
The Likud and Labor parties form the backbone of the incumbent coalition but, Perz is trying to rekindle his party and turn it into a more attractive alternative to the Likud. He made Labor's ministers sign letters of resignation. Perz has not forwarded those letters but they serve as a tacit threat that he could pull Labor out of the government if he wishes. And he demanded early elections.
Sharon wanted to Knesset to run its course right up to November. However he does not want to lead a powerless minority government that survives just because the different opposition parties cannot agree on an alternative candidate for prime minister. The law requires that an absolute majority of the Knesset members nominate an alternative candidate for prime minister in order to bring down an incumbent government.
"I do not intend to lead a minority government for months," Sharon told the Yediot Aharonot newspaper
"We must make sure that 2006 will not be a lost year in the political process and the efforts to reach a settlement with the Palestinians," he added.
He was concerned also over an expected failure to win a majority for next year's budget.
Moreover, early elections are likely to find his major rival in the Likud primaries, Binyamin Netanyahu, ill prepared.
Sharon therefore opted for snap elections.
Perz who spoke to reporters after meeting with Sharon said: "I let him set the (election) date between the end of February and (the end of) March and any date he decides is acceptable to me, as early as possible."
The options are rather narrow because Israelis prefer to hold elections on a Tuesday, to avoid desecration of the Sabbath in preparations and the final count of the ballot slips. One of the Tuesdays is the Memorial Day for missing soldiers and another is the Purim holiday when children masquerade.
The elections will thus be held a month or two after the Palestinians choose their new Legislative Council. This means that by springtime both sides should be ready to move ahead with the peace process, if they wish to do so.
Sharon must now decide whether to try and head the Likud again or form a new party.
He had helped create the Likud, and if he leads, its list stands to head the biggest Knesset faction by far.
However in recent years he has had to contend with a rebellious central committee and Knesset faction. Many members fought against the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the evacuation of four settlements in the northern West Bank.
The Likud has 40 Knesset Members in the 120-seat parliament, but Sharon could not count on almost one third of the Likud legislators. He learned the battle was not over even after the disengagement was completed. Eight Likud Knesset members recently teamed up with the opposition and foiled his attempt to bring two Likud Knesset Members into the Cabinet.
Sharon wants to move ahead with the "roadmap," the internationally devised peace plan that sets out steps towards the creation of an independent Palestinian state and peace with Israel, "but is not sure he can," a close adviser told United Press International, alluding to the Likud setup.
Is he planning to establish a new party, the source was asked?
"All the options are open," he answered.
According to another very well placed source Sharon is considering whether the Likud hardliners, who now want him to stay in the party, will rise again after the elections and put spokes in his wheels.
"He must make up his own mind whether it is realistic (to expect) he can function in the new system,' the source said.
Recent public opinions polls show Sharon would win a race for the Likud leadership. The latest poll among Likud voters shows Sharon has a 19 percent lead over Netanyahu, compared with a 14 percent lead some six weeks ago, Haaretz reported. However many hardliners, or "rebels," would make it to the top slots in the list of Knesset candidates.
Sharon's procrastination irked Likud leaders. Reporting on Wednesday's faction meeting former minister Uzi Landau, one of Sharon's main rivals said: "We said to him there, 'Are you in the Likud or are you not?' and he doesn't say!"
Agriculture Minister Israel Katz, speaking on behalf of the party's secretariat asked Sharon to state, "I stay at home. I stay in the Likud."
Some reports said Sharon will decide Monday but one source told UPI that Sharon must make up his mind within two weeks.
If Sharon bolts some party leaders such as Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are likely to go with him, but Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom will join the race with Netanyahu and Landau for the Likud leadership.
Polls show Sharon would win the elections even if he heads a new party, though such a list would not have as many seats as if he would lead the Likud list.
Several Labor Party leaders must also decide what to do now that Perz won. Vice Premier Shimon Peres has taken a time-out from party activity.
The head of Labor's Knesset faction, Efraim Sneh, said he believed Peres would remain Labor. "I don't think (a breakaway) is an option he is considering," Sneh said.
Perz, rose in the ranks of the labor federation, and placed the social issues at the core of his agenda. He is seeking to break away from the traditional focus on peace and security issues.
"After many years in which the Labor Party in Israel...became more of an upper middle class party, we have an opportunity ... to get support from people who didn't consider us an alternative earlier," Knesset Member, Prof. Yuli Tamir, said at a briefing, Thursday.
Perz was born in Morocco, still lives in a "development town" and could thus appeal to Jews from Arab countries whom the more affluent Ashkenazi (European-born) party elite have not attracted and who often supported the Likud.
Tamir noted that last week's public opinion polls have shown an increase in support for Labor from 19 seats to 28. A poll published Thursday showed that even among Russian immigrants support for Labor has increased from two to 8.5 percent and that is before the campaign began, Tamir continued.
"Every expert, except myself, said that once Amir is elected all the Russians are going to vote against him because they hate Moroccans, because he looks like Stalin, and they don't believe the Histadrut (labor federation) that sounds too much like the former Soviet Union," she noted.
"The whole political arena is now dealing with social issues," she noted.
Israelis now have the luxury to focus on such issues because the Palestinians have decided on a lull in attacks. A resumption of attacks, particularly before the elections, could throw Labor's campaign into disarray though Tamir maintained it was impossible to predict the effect of such a development.
