Sharon 'to quit' Likud Party

2005-11-21 07:30

Jerusalem - Israel took two giant steps toward early elections when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reportedly decided to quit his Likud Party and form a new movement, just hours after the moderate Labour Party voted to leave his coalition government.

Likud activists said late on Sunday that Sharon would leave the party he helped set up in 1973 because of Likud opposition to his pullout from Gaza and part of the West Bank, completed in September.

On Monday Sharon is to ask Israel's president to dissolve parliament, the first step toward calling elections in March, Army Radio reported. Sharon made no formal announcement, but party leaders said Sharon contacted them with his decision.

Advancing Israel's election from the original November 2006 date would likely sideline Mideast peace moves and counter whatever momentum was gained from Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and part of the West Bank, completed in September.

Sharon is expected to take several prominent Likud cabinet ministers with him into his new party, along with some from Labour - possibly including the ousted chairperson, elder statesman Shimon Peres.

Sharon's Gaza pullout, a dramatic about-face after decades of settlement building and expansion in the West Bank and Gaza, fractured his party. Rebels in the Likud faction in parliament withheld support from his initiatives, even preventing him from adding two supporters to his cabinet - demonstrating that Sharon's government could not function.

Sharon's departure would leave Likud as a bastion of hardline opponents to compromise with the Palestinians.

"I regret Sharon's decision to leave and would have preferred that he continue his struggle within Likud," said Likud member of parliament Ehud Yatom, one of the leaders of the internal rebellion against Sharon.

At least five Likud cabinet ministers have said they will compete for Likud leadership after Sharon's exit.

Polls in weekend Israeli newspapers showed that Sharon at the head of a new party would scramble the electoral picture completely, with Likud as the main loser, and Labour under its new leader, Amir Peretz, increasing its strength.

The Labour decision to leave Sharon's government came at a party convention by a show of hands, following Peretz's wishes. With Labour out and Sharon's coalition crumbling, attention turned to setting an election date.

Also, Palestinians are concentrating on their own parliamentary election, set for January 25, with Hamas running candidates for the first time and posing a significant challenge to the ruling Fatah Party of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

- AP