Headlines, Middle East & North Africa | Analysis

ISRAEL: Mr. Security versus Mrs. Clean

Analysis by Peter Hirschberg

JERUSALEM, Aug 18 2008 (IPS) - Members of Kadima face a vexing choice ahead of the ruling party’s leadership primary next month: Do they support Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz, who may have the best chance of cobbling together a new governing coalition, or do they back Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni because polls show that Kadima under her leadership would significantly outperform a Mofaz-led Kadima in a general election?

It all depends on which scenario Kadima members believe is more likely – that a new government can be carved out of the current parliament or not. After a new Kadima leader is elected – the first round of voting is on Sep. 17 and a second will be held a week later if no one gets over 40 percent – they will be given six weeks to form a new government. If they fail, early elections will follow within 90 days.

While Mofaz is trying to portray himself as the Kadima candidate with the greatest chance of forming a new coalition, Livni is telling party members that only she can lead them to victory in a national election.

For now, the polls favour Livni, giving her a six to 10-point lead over Mofaz in the primary race. They also show Kadima under her leadership winning up to eight seats more than Mofaz in a general election.

With elections only scheduled for November 2010, Kadima members would prefer not to go the polls right now: they fear losing some of their 29 seats in parliament as well as losing the election overall to Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister and head of the centre-right Likud party. That might increase support for Mofaz, but within political circles the conventional wisdom is that a new Kadima leader, regardless of who it is, will not succeed in reconstituting a ruling coalition and that an election will be held by early next year.

This might explain why more key party members are lining up behind Livni, as Kadima ministers and lawmakers come off the fence with the primary only a month away. Internal Security Minister and former Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter and Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit are also in the race, but polls show both of them trailing badly with only single-digit support.

The race is shaping up as Mr. Security versus Mrs. Clean. The 60-year-old Mofaz, a former army chief and former defence minister, has been trying to portray himself as tough on security, especially with regard to Iran. If Tehran continued developing its nuclear programme, he said in early June, an Israeli attack on its nuclear installations would be “unavoidable” – a comment that sparked a dramatic 11-dollar spike in oil prices.

Mofaz insists his more hawkish views will make it easier for him to draw in more hardline parties when it comes to rebuilding a Kadima-led coalition. Accordingly, he has also sounded skeptical about the prospects of peace with the Palestinians, and has been critical of a year-end deadline for reaching an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

Talya Somech, a senior aide to Mofaz, recently said that a much longer period of time was required before trust could be established between the sides. “He believes that years and mutual confidence will be needed in order to reach these topics,” she said, referring to core issues like borders, refugees and security arrangements that are currently being discussed in talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Those talks are being led by Livni, who as foreign minister has been in charge of negotiations with the Palestinians. A former agent in Israel’s Mossad spy agency and a lawyer by training, Livni’s opposition to a land-for-peace deal with the Palestinians early in her political career softened over time. The final ideological break came in 2005 when she abandoned the Likud to join former prime minister Ariel Sharon in setting up Kadima, because of strong opposition within the Likud to territorial compromise with the Palestinians.

The 50-year-old Livni, who is also the acting premier and has served as justice minister, has been one of Ehud Olmert’s greatest critics and has portrayed herself as the antithesis of the prime minister, who has been embroiled in no fewer than six corruption scandals since taking office in May 2006. It was the latest scandal – he is accused of illicitly receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from a Jewish U.S. businessman – that finally led the prime minister to announce late last month that he would resign as soon as Kadima had chosen a new leader.

After a government-appointed inquiry into the 2006 Lebanon war determined that Olmert was responsible for mismanaging the military campaign, Livni called on the prime minister to resign, but did not resign herself.

As the corruption allegations mounted, so did her criticism of the prime minister. She again demanded he step aside after Morris Talansky, the U.S. businessman, told a Jerusalem court in late May that he had given Olmert some 150,000 dollars in cash to cover, amongst other things, personal expenses like hotel rooms and a family holiday to Italy, in a 15-year period before he became prime minister.

One of Livni’s latest catches is influential Kadima figure Tsahi Hanegbi, who is well connected with the party’s grassroots political bosses. “Three years ago I answered the call of prime minister Sharon to help him found the Kadima movement,” Hanegbi told reporters last week as he announced his support for Livni. “Today I am announcing my decision to answer the call of the acting prime minister (Livni), and help her in her bid for the premiership.”

Mofaz hopes his stronger connection to Kadima’s field operatives will help him close the gap on Livni. But the decision by Hanegbi – an astute politician with a highly developed political snout – to back the foreign minister, is another sign that the polls predicting she will be the party’s next leader, may well be correct.