MK Avigdor Lieberman, Chairman of the Yisrael Beiteinu Party (Knesset archive photo)
Fifteen
months after being sworn in, Yisrael Beiteinu Party Chairman and Minister for
Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman announced on Wednesday, 16 January that he
was resigning his office and that his party was leaving the coalition.
The
official reason behind the move, which was announced during a press conference,
was disagreements with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert regarding the
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on the core issues.
With Yisrael
Beiteinu becoming part of the opposition, Olmert’s coalition will number only
67 MKs (out of 120). In addition, the Labor Party will decide the coalition’s
future following the upcoming publication of the Winograd report on Israel’s 2006 war against Lebanon. The Shas Party is also threatening to resign from
the government should the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations involve Jerusalem.
This
week’s commencement of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations over the core
issues of the peace process provided Avigdor Lieberman with a good excuse to
quit the government. With falling rates of popular approval and harsh
competition with Arkadi Gaydamak’s new “Social Justice” political party, Yisrael
Beiteinu could not permit a situation in which the Labor Party quits the
government coalition first upon publication of the Winograd report. This would
have damaged the anti-establishment image promoted by the party’s chairman,
Avigdor Lieberman.
The
fact that Yisrael Beiteinu quit the government actually helps the Labor Party
to resolve the major dilemma of whether to quit or not.
Ehud
Barak was elected as chairman of the Labor Party after the failed war in Lebanon. Barak
promised to leave the government following the publication of the Winograd
inquiry commission final report.
With
Yisrael Beiteinu on the opposition bench, Barak can claim that he remains in
the government despite the Winograd report in order to move the Israeli/Palestinian
negotiation process forward, as he was publicly requested by the leadership of Peace
Now. If negotiations with the PA move forward, then Olmert’s government
may also gain the support of Meretz and even Hadash, without the need to ask them
to join the coalition.
For
Ehud Barak, the alternative to quitting the coalition may be to call for early elections
in late 2008 or early 2009 through the drafting of a law. In such a case, Ehud
Olmert will be the head of a transitional government to which ministers cannot
be added, nor can they resign.
The
possibility of early elections may be appealing to most of the political
parties in the Knesset who can run a long election campaign and improve their popular
appeal. The alternative is to risk elections in 90 days if Ehud Olmert loses
his parliamentary majority.
Ehud
Olmert and Kadima’s only survival strategy right now is to move forward with
the Annapolis
process. If the process moves forward and an agreement with the Palestinians is
reached, Kadima may make out of the elections a referendum for peace.
This
could be achieved with a transitional government, which enjoys all executive
powers, but can govern in minority. However if the process continues with a
transitional government, the rightwing forces will be mobilized under the claim
that all agreements signed are illegitimate. Moreover, there is no guarantee
that the process will lead to an agreement with the Palestinians by the end of
2008.
It
is still too early to assume that Ehud Olmert’s career has come to an end. He
is an expert in political survival and knows that his only mistake would be to
quit. Olmert managed to remain in power after the disastrous defeat in Lebanon and without any popularity; he managed
to impose a friendly inquiry committee for that war, in the face of massive
mobilization of soldiers who fought in Lebanon. Olmert will likely manage
to survive the upcoming report of the Winograd committee.
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