Ariel Sharon has rejected calls for his resignation following the indictment of an Israeli businessman for allegedly paying him substantial bribes for political favours. But pressure on the Israeli prime minister grew yesterday after he stuck doggedly to his refusal to explain publicly his relationship with the accused man.
Brazening out the growing public clamour, last night, he vowed to serve his full term until 2007. ”I came here as prime minister and the chairman of the Likud party … a position I intend to fill for many years, at least until 2007,” Mr Sharon told youth members of his ruling party.
He took the unusual step of telephoning two prominent newspapers on Tuesday after the indictment was served on David Appel, a powerbroker in Likud who is accused of paying a total of $700 000 five years ago in bribes to the Sharon family.
”I’m calling you so that there should be no mistake. I am not about to resign. I stress: I am not about to resign,” he told Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
The prime minister told Ma’ariv newspaper that he had not given any thought to the allegations that five years ago, as foreign minister, he took money in return for pressuring the Greek government to approve a scheme by Appel to build a casino and resort on an Aegean island. ”I don’t occupy myself with that. I am investing in my work and don’t deal with those issues,” he said.
But there is growing pressure on him to explain his version of events to the public. Opinion polls in yesterday’s newspapers showed that most Israelis do not believe the prime minister’s denials of wrongdoing.
A poll in Ma’ariv found that 53% of Israelis believe Sharon took a bribe. The daily Ha’aretz found that 64% believed he should resign if he had been involved in criminal behaviour, and 68% did not believe his claim that he knew nothing of the bribery and illegal election funding affairs for which he is being investigated.
The leader of the opposition Labour party, Shimon Peres, told Sharon, who is popularly known as Arik, that he had a duty to the public to clear the suspicion hanging over him as the first Israeli prime minister to be accused of taking bribes.
”The situation obliges the prime minister to present his version to the people,” said Peres. ”This isn’t an easy moment for me. I’ve been a friend of Arik’s for over 50 years and I haven’t concealed that friendship. On the other hand, Israel is in a difficult hour and the fog needs to be dispelled for the sake of the people and the state.”
But Sharon said that to do so would distract him from the business of governing. ”I don’t think that I need to do that now. The issues are under examination. I said everything that I had to say. What I need to do now is to continue to manage state affairs,” he told Ma’ariv.
Israel’s acting attorney general, Edna Arbel, said she intended to order further questioning of the prime minister within days. The fraud squad interrogated Sharon in October, but described him as evasive and unhelpful.
Arbel said she believed there was sufficient evidence to charge the prime minister with corruption. But the final decision will lie with the new attorney general, who is likely to be appointed by the cabinet on Sunday.
Some legal experts say that it would not make sense for the prosecution to have taken such a serious step as naming Sharon as the recipient of bribes from Appel and then not charge the prime minister.
Others say the bar will be higher in dealing with Sharon because prosecutors will have to prove he took the money knowing it was in return for misusing his office.
Some of Sharon’s aides on Thursday sought to portray the naming of the prime minister in the indictment as a leftwing plot that dangerously threatens to destabilise the government at a time when Israel is embroiled in a conflict with the Palestinians.
The Labour party is expected to call for a no-confidence vote in parliament next week. But it is likely to lose, and the demands for Sharon’s immediate resignation will probably be less effective than the more subtle, and seemingly less political, strategy of calling on him to explain himself to the public.
Sharon has received almost no public support from his cabinet colleagues. His main rivals, the finance minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, the foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, and the education minister, Limor Livnat, refused to speak publicly. – Guardian Unlimited Â