Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Monday narrowly survived an attempt to force an early leadership election in the ruling Likud party, in retaliation for his demolition of Jewish settlements in Gaza, after warning that the party would be ”committing political suicide”.
But the razor-thin margin of his victory, by about 100 votes out of nearly 3 000 cast by Likud central committee members, suggests that Sharon will struggle to remain party leader into a general election that must be held within a year.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister, tried to bring forward the leadership ballot among ordinary party members in the belief that he can unseat Sharon and go into the next election as Likud candidate for prime minister.
But although there is widespread anger in the party over what many members see as the surrender of Israeli territory in Gaza, Sharon persuaded enough central committee members that removing him as leader would result in Likud surrendering power months before it is necessary to call an election.
His allies suggested that if he were to lose the ballot, he would form a new party — which opinion polls say would heavily defeat Likud under Netanyahu’s leadership, and give the prime minister several years more in power.
The leadership contest will probably now be held next spring with a general election in the second half of the year.
Netanyahu conceded defeat on Monday night but said he was still confident he would unseat Sharon: ”We lost by a very few votes. There is a very large camp that went against the flow, against the wind, against the pressure, against the leadership, and against the temptations.”
Sharon said Monday’s ballot was motivated by ”vindictiveness”, and he appealed to the party he founded not to reject concessions to the Palestinians that were supported by most Israelis.
”This would be suicide that would spell the end of the Likud, and would lead it to only one place — the opposition,” he said.
The prime minister portrayed the party as facing a choice between limited concessions to the Palestinians, which would leave Israel in control of major settlement blocks, or backing Netanyahu and the far right, who Sharon said were still wedded to ”Greater Israel” and continued occupation.
”We have a dream that is good and just. But there is also reality, which is difficult and demanding. It is impossible to have a Jewish, democratic state and at the same time to control all of [the ancient land of] Eretz Israel,” he said. ”If we insist on fulfilling the dream in its entirety, we are liable to lose it all. Everything. That is where the extremist path takes us.”
Netanyahu told Likud members that there should be no more unilateral concessions.
”Have we not had enough of the Hamas state? Are we going to look after our own security, or will we continue with the concessions?”
Much of the anti-Sharon vote was driven by bitterness over his refusal to recognise a party referendum that voted against the Gaza pull-out, and by a desire to prevent the further closure of settlements in the West Bank.
But the broader public backs him, and polls show that if he were to launch his own party it would win more than twice as many parliamentary seats as Likud would under Netanyahu, and push it into third place behind Shimon Peres’s Labour party.
One commentator, Nahum Barnea, wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that Likud was more intent on punishing Sharon than retaining power: ”For many of the members, it is important to establish the fact that a PM [prime minister] who withdraws from Israeli territory cannot stand. He is either murdered or ousted.”
What happens next?
Ariel Sharon has staved off the short-term challenge that could have forced a general election as early as February, but only delayed what his enemies in Likud hope is inevitable. He will still have to face a contest for the leadership, probably next spring, ahead of a general election.
If he won, why not again next year?
Monday’s vote was of the party’s central committee, but the leadership ballot, when it finally comes, is the entire membership. Sharon’s rival, Netanyahu, is confident that widespread anger in Likud over demolition of settlements in Gaza will not have eased.
Can Sharon survive as PM?
Opinion polls say that if he launches his own political party, it would pick up more than twice the number of seats in Parliament as Likud would, headed by Netanyahu. That would probably allow him to remain prime minister by putting together a coalition similar to the one now in power, with the Labour party as the principal partner to Sharon’s own party. — Guardian Unlimited Â