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Israel's Labor Party Agrees to Join Unity Government
Israel's Labor Party decided Monday night to join the proposed national unity government to be led by Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon, Labor officials announced.
In a secret ballot of the Labor Central Committee in Tel Aviv, 66 percent of the more than 1,600 members voted for joining the unity government, 32 percent against and 2 percent abstained, the officials said.
The result will pave the way for Sharon, leader of the right- wing Likud party who won the prime ministerial election on February 6, to submit a government list to the Knesset (parliament), probably next week.
The vote was regarded as a victory of Labor interim leader Shimon Peres, a former prime minister who supports such a unity government and is likely to take up the foreign minister's post.
But outgoing Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami and Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, two leading opponents to Labor's joining the unity government, might leave the party and form a new social democratic party with their supporters, a move which would lead to split of the Jewish state's largest party.
Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak was defeated by a large margin by Sharon in the February 6 election, after which Sharon invited the Labor to form a coalition government with his right- wing Likud party.
After several weeks of negotiations, the two parties reached an agreement, under which the Labor Party will get portfolios of foreign, defense, transportation, agriculture, trade and industry, science, culture, sport and two ministries without portfolio.
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