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News Analysis: Sharon Uses Center Party to Shore up Coalition
Israel's Center Party has joined Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's national unity government after signing a coalition agreement at Sharon's office in Tel Aviv Monday night.
The joining-in of five Center Party lawmakers has boosted up Sharon's coalition to an 83-seat absolute majority in the 120- member Knesset, or parliament.
Analysts pointed out that by inviting the Center Party into the coalition, Sharon wants to achieve three political aims: shoring up his supporting rate, counterbalancing the left-wing Labor Party in the cabinet, and offsetting the threat from former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel's daily Ma'ariv last week published a Gallup poll, showing that Sharon's popularity slipped significantly from 59 percent in July to 49 percent.
The poll also indicated that 70 percent of the Israelis, in comparison with 41 percent in the poll in July, believed that Sharon could not end the violence with the Palestinians.
The poll was a dangerous signal to Sharon, who won the election in February partially due to his election slogan that he would bring security back to Israel. But so far, he has failed to fulfill his pledge.
At such a political juncture, Sharon definitely needs outside support to avoid the confidence crisis, and the Center Party led by the charismatic political star Dan Meridor is obviously his perfect target.
More important, Sharon also hopes that the Center Party would act in his unity government as a counterbalance to the left-wing Labor Party, which has a massive 24 seats in the coalition.
The Labor Party, who supports the peace negotiations with the Palestinians for ending the violence, would hold its primaries in September. There are rumors that if Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg is elected as Labor leader, he would lead the party out of the coalition.
Now, as the Center Party has joined in the coalition, Sharon would have 59 Knesset seats in hands even without the Labor Party.
Such a new power-balance may force the Labor to think twice before making a threat to leave the government as Sharon could easily find a substitute to restore his parliamentary majority.
Furthermore, Meridor would also participate in the inner-circle security cabinet currently composed of Sharon, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, Finance Minister Silvan Shalom and Shas Party leader Eli Yishai. Meridor could form a right-wing coalition with Sharon against Peres and Ben Eliezer, both members of the Labor.
Sharon also promised that if the Labor Party leaves the government and the foreign and defense portfolios are vacated, Meridor would have the right to choose from the portfolios first.
As Meridor was widely regarded by the Israelis as a qualified candidate for foreign minister and defense minister, his presence in the cabinet would help Sharon to survive the possible aftershock once the Labor leaves the government.
Finally, despite Sharon's denial, he obviously has a secret agenda to use the Center Party and Meridor as his tools to fight against former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Likud party.
Although the next prime ministerial election is most probably due in 2003 and the Likud would not begin its party primaries until next year, Sharon has already bitterly felt Netanyahu's threat as he was repeatedly jeered by Netanyahu's supporters in last month's meeting of the Likud's Central Committee.
Thus, Meridor and his Center Party colleagues, most of them rebels from the Likud Party due to their political and personal conflicts with Netanyahu, could be Sharon's natural confederates in the internal struggle with Netanyahu.
It is believed that Sharon hopes that Meridor and Likud rebels would rejoin the Likud and strengthen the Sharon camp in the party, which may help him to be re-elected as prime minister in 2003.
Israeli observers also speculated that Sharon may intend to recruit Meridor as his political successor.
However, analysts also pointed out that Sharon's wishful thinking may backfire as Meridor, unlike his former Likud colleagues, holds a moderate political view regarding the solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian violence, which has lasted for about 11 months and left over 700 people dead, most of them Palestinians.
Meridor, who would be appointed as a minister without portfolio in charge of security issues, will be the only minister in Sharon's office who had participated in the ill-fated summit between former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and former U.S. President Bill Clinton in Camp David in July, 2000.
He recently promoted the idea of unilateral separation between Israel and the Palestinians, which means Israel would unilaterally withdraw from some occupied lands in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Could Sharon accept the unilateral separation plan? If Sharon conflicts with Meridor regarding the security issues, how could he solve it? If Meridor, contrary to Sharon's expectation, formed a coalition with dovish Peres in the inner-circle security cabinet, would Sharon regret his decision today? The Israeli hawkish prime minister may face those uncertainties in the future.
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