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Israel Premier Olmert to resign

Ehud Olmert

JERUSALEM: A day after Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced he would leave political life, top rival Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday Israel should get rid of the governing coalition and go straight to early elections.

Polls show Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party would most likely win such a race if it were held today. Mr. Olmert threw Israel’s political system into turmoil on Wednesday by abruptly announcing he would step down after his Kadima Party’s leadership race in September, called because of a series of corruption allegations swirling around him.

“This is a government that has come to the end of its road,” said Mr. Netanyahu on Thursday. “It doesn’t make any difference who heads Kadima, they are all part to a string of failures by this government, the Kadima government, and national responsibility obliges going back to the people for new elections,” he said.

“The right thing to do when the Prime Minister goes is ... to let the people choose who will lead them and whoever is chosen, he is the one who will need to put together a government,” he said. Mr. Olmert announced his decision to leave office in September amid a series of corruption probes whose political weight proved too heavy to bear. The most serious involves suspicions that he illicitly took hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from a Jewish-American fundraiser.

Israel’s political system allows Mr. Olmert’s replacement as Kadima head to carry out his term, which was to have ended in November 2010. But it is possible that the next Kadima leader would not be able to form a coalition government, given the fractious and freewheeling nature of Israeli politics. In that event, new elections would be called, and held early next year. It is possible that Mr. Olmert could remain as a caretaker Prime Minister during this time. The top two contenders to succeed him in Kadima are Tzipi Livni, a centrist who enjoys widespread public support and is leading Israeli negotiations with the Palestinians, and Shaul Mofaz, a hawkish former Defence Minister and military chief who headed Israel’s security operations when it put down a Palestinian uprising eight years ago.

Since Mr. Olmert became Premier, the police have launched six corruption investigations against him, all involving events that took place before he took office. The last — suspicions that he double- and triple-billed charities and government ministries for identical trips — delivered the final blow to his political career. Mr. Olmert, who has been dogged by corruption allegations throughout his career but never convicted, has denied any wrongdoing. — AP

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