Israel leans right:
Last update - 17:00 30/08/2005
Netanyahu announces run for the premiership
By Mazal Mualem, Haaretz Correspondent
In a direct challenge to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, MK Benjamin Netanyahu declared his candidacy Tuesday for chairmanship of the Likud and as the party's candidate for the premiership.
Netanyahu painted Sharon as a prime minister who had veered sharply to the political left, abandoning his own party in the process.
"The Likud today needs a leader who can unify the ranks, rehabilitate the ruins, and lead the Likud to victory, and who will then lead the state in the spirit of our principles, and believe that I can do that," Netanyahu told a news conference in Tel Aviv.
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"Therefore, I today announce my candidacy for the leadership of the Likud, and for the premiership."
The move could set in motion an eventual split in the party, with Sharon bolting the Likud and starting a splinter faction of his own.
Netanyahu said Sharon, who founded the party in the early 1970s, had abandoned the path of the Likud, and had adopted the way of the Israeli left. "The man who got the votes turned his shoulder. He abandoned the principles of the Likud. He chose a different path, the path of the left," he told a mixed audience of reporters, supporters and a few vocal opponents.
"We have to restore to the Likud and the state the principles that
Sharon trampled on."
Netanyahu was flanked by a varied group of supporters, including former cabinet minister Natan Sharansky, author Eyal Meged, Ze'ev Jabotinsky - grandson of the founder of Revisionist Zionism - and a number of anti-disengagement Likud "rebels," among them lawmakers Naomi Blumenthal, Michael Gorolovsky, Ehud Yaton, Michael Ratzon, and David Levy.
Also present, but in a background role, was Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin.
"I intend to lead the party to victory in the coming elections and form the next government," Netayahu said to applause. By law, Israel must hold general elections by November next year, but the Netanyahu bid could prompt early elections.
"Today, the Likud and the state need a leader who will stop granting a tailwind to terrorism, who will stop the spreading criminal corruption, and who will heal the rifts and abysses which opened in the people,"
Netanyahu said.
At one point, his remarks were interrupted by heckling, to which Netanyahu said "It's hard to listen to the truth." Netanyahu said the heckling was an example of how one side - indicating the left and Sharon - "always gets the entire stage, and the whole of the media."
Netanyahu declared that the years of his premiership were years of prosperity and personal security. "I offer my candidacy not only on the experience of the past," said Netanyahu, who was prime minister from 1996-1999. "The test of every person and every leader is the abiliity to develop, to mature, and to learn from the mistakes of the past.
"I have learned the lessons. I am ready."
In pointed references to Sharon's having acted in defiance of past decisions of the Central Committee on key policy issues, Netanyahu spoke as though to the prime minister, saying: "It's about time that you stopped running away from the voters. Pledge as I have asked you, to accept the democratic verdict of the majority of the menbers of the Likud, and remain in the movement.
"That is democracy, Arik. It's about time you honored it."
The effort to oust Sharon as party chief
On Monday, the party's court paved the way for the Netanyahu announcement, when it ruled that the Likud Central Committee would vote on September 26 on a proposal to advance the party's leadership primaries, thereby effectively beginning the process of ousting Sharon as the party's head.
The expected primaries vote represents the first time that any party has tried to oust a serving prime minister as its chairman. It also represents a significant defeat for Sharon, who tried hard to prevent the central committee from convening for this purpose, as early primaries will force him to make decisions about his political future long before he had planned to do so.
Should the committee, as currently seems likely, adopt the proposal submitted by his opponents, the primaries will take place in late November, within 60 days of the committee's vote. Thus Sharon will have to decide by then whether to run against Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently leading in polls of party members, or quit the Likud and start a new party.
Likud decision likely to cause Labor to bolt
Monday's decision is also liable to cause the Knesset to dissolve shortly after its winter session begins in late October, as it will encourage Labor to quit the coalition: Early Likud primaries probably signals early elections, for which Labor must also start preparing, and it would prefer to do so from outside the government. MK Amir Peretz, one of the five contenders for Labor's leadership, responded to the Likud court's decision by urging his party to schedule its primaries in October.
Sharon's supporters responded to the decision by accusing Netanyahu and other Sharon opponents of wanting to oust the prime minister even at the price of sending the party into the opposition. They added that Sharon has not yet made any decisions about his political future.
However, Sharon himself said in a Channel 10 interview that he would definitely run in the primaries, but would not agree to be Netanyahu's number two if he lost.
First, however, Sharon plans to fight the decision to advance the contest, his associates said. Among other things, his supporters are considering appealing the party court's decision to the regular courts, charging that the former had no authority to approve the vote. |
