Israel’s Sharon mulls new political party: report

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
may break away from his rightist Likud and form a new political
party after a crisis with hardliners who opposed the Gaza
pullout, a television report said on Tuesday.

The report on Channel One television said national
elections, now scheduled for November 2006, could be moved up
to April or May after Likud lawmakers still angry at the
withdrawal thwarted Sharon’s bid on Monday to name two cabinet
ministers.

“He cannot work like this,” the television’s political
reporter Ayala Hasson said. “If elections are moved up, Sharon
will launch a new party” called My Only Country, she said.

Israel Radio quoted a top aide to Sharon as saying a Likud
split would be a “done deal” unless party leaders could rein in
the half dozen hardliners known as “the rebels.”

Sharon had threatened lawmakers “there will be
consequences” after the party rebels saw to the defeat of his
Parliament motion to name the new ministers.

There has been speculation Sharon could form a new centrist
party to capitalize on broad public support for the pullout
that ended 38 years of military rule in Gaza. But Tuesday’s
report was the first to suggest the process was already
underway.

Sharon’s political future could at least be partly decided
by a leadership election in the left-of-center Labour Party on
Wednesday. If the incumbent, Vice Premier Shimon Peres, wins
Sharon may stay through the end of his term.

Peres’s leading opponent, Amir Peretz, head of the
Histadrut Trade Unions Federation, has said he would withdraw
immediately from the grand coalition with Likud if elected, and
force an early national poll.

Opinion polls predicted a Peres victory. A Channel One
survey showed Peres winning 58 percent to 29 percent for
Peretz, with remaining votes to a third candidate, former party
leader Benjamin Ben-Eliezer.