Movement for Quality Government slams Livni

Key Kadima activists defect to Mofaz.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
Tzippi Livni 311 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Tzippi Livni 311
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
The Movement for Quality Government in Israel (MQG) sent Kadima leader Tzipi Livni a letter on Wednesday protesting her decision to give former MK Omri Sharon a top role in her reelection campaign.
Sharon served seven months in prison after he was convicted of violating political fundraising laws and providing false testimony during the 1999 race for Likud leader won by his father, former prime minister Ariel Sharon.
The letter mentioned Haim Ramon, Kadima council chairman, who was convicted of sexual harassment, and Tzahi Hanegbi, Kadima house committee chairman, who was convicted of perjury, as well as top party officials who have been investigated. The movement called upon Livni to expel such people from the party.
“We think that the woman known as Mrs. Clean cannot have so many people around her who have been convicted in a court of law,” MQG Chairman Eliad Shraga said. “This group of convicts are her closest allies.”
“This letter should serve as a wake up call for her,” Shraga said. “She is fine, but her friends are not.”
Livni’s associates responded that no one had the right to scold Livni, after she turned down a chance to form a government because she refused to give into Shas’s extortion.
“She has full faith in the legal system and its decisions,” her campaign said. “These are people who paid the price the legal system set, served their sentences, and who now want to contribute to the state as they did for much of their lives.”
Sources close to Livni’s rival, Kadima MK Shaul Mofaz, said Sharon’s addition to Livni’s campaign was greeted with antagonism by Kadima activists.
They said activists told Sharon that they do not like him using his father’s name in vain.
After Mofaz was bolstered last week by 12 MKs who endorsed him, he received a boost this week from key Kadima activists who defected from Livni’s camp. None of the names are known to the general public but each one has the power to bring hundreds of Kadima members to the polls.
The list includes Yavne Deputy Mayor Ehud Weizmann, Northern activist Nehemia Reibi, Jerusalem activist Meir Malka and Director of Kadima’s Coastal Plain region Shlomo Abramowitz.
There are also key Mofaz activists who will support Livni in this election, including Ronnie Ben-Hamo of Ofakim and Maxim Elgrably of Netanya. But their defection to the Livni camp was not recent.