Israeli politics in turmoil

2006-01-12 13:52

Tel Aviv - Israeli politics resumed in earnest on Thursday as four Likud ministers were set to hand in letters of resignation while Prime Minister Ariel Sharon remained "serious but stable" after a massive brain haemorrhage.

Doctors have expressed amazement at the 77-year-old leader's powers of recovery and a series of upbeat medical reports from the hospital where he is in intensive care have sunk a truce in electioneering for a March poll.

The leader of Sharon's old right-wing party, Benjamin Netanyahu, was quick to launch a vitriolic attack on the caretaker government, pushing the four remaining cabinet ministers from Likud into agreeing to resign.

Three of them have submitted letters of resignation to Netanyahu following his request that they step down so as not to implement the policies of acting prime minister Ehud Olmert.

Agriculture Minister Israel Katz and Health Minister Danny Naveh said Netanyahu would submit their letters to the government secretariat later on Thursday.

Education Minister Limor Livnat had also handed in a letter with Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom expected to do so later in the day.

The party, which has been in crisis since Sharon jumped ship to create his new centrist movement Kadima six weeks before his stroke, is at loggerheads with Olmert, who was one of the first from Likud to defect to Kadima.

Netanyahu is reluctant to see his ministers involved in government plans to allow Palestinians living in east Jerusalem to vote in their own general election on January 25.

Hopeful comments

In a vote likely to see hardliners seal their grip on Likud, the party was voting on Thursday for its candidates for the March 28 general election.

The centrist Shinui, and ultra-right-wing National Religious Party and National Union were also electing their candidates.

Labour, which has accused both Likud and Kadima of being two sides of the same anti-peace, anti-poor coin, will hold a similar vote next Tuesday.

It remains unclear, however, when Kadima will draw up its own list of candidates with its leader still in intensive care.

Party officials had seized on a series of hopeful comments from doctors to suggest that Sharon might yet be able to head their candidate list.

More than a week after the massive brain haemorrhage that plunged him into a coma, he remained "serious but stable" with a "normal" heartbeat the Hadassah hospital announced.

Although doctors have doubted whether Sharon will ever again be able to lead the country, his chief neurosurgeon Felix Umansky said his progress so far had defied all expectations.

Politicians from both Likud and Labour have accused Kadima of abusing the prime minister's name, acutely sensitive that Sharon's plight has maximised public support for his fledgling centrist movement.

Kadima has levelled the same accusations against Netanyahu for allegedly presenting himself as Sharon's natural successor.

- AFP