Background: Elections could be months away as law provides lengthy path to the polls

By DAN IZENBERG
That Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Sunday handed back the mandate she received from President Shimon Peres to form a new government has no immediate affect on the current status of the government. Ever since Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's resignation went into effect and with it, the automatic resignation of his government, he has been in charge of a caretaker government that will continue to remain in power until a new government is formed and wins the support of a Knesset majority. As long as Olmert continues to preside over the caretaker government, the same rules and constraints will apply regarding his powers and those of his ministers that have been in effect since the day he resigned. The law does not determine what these powers and constraints are. However, the High Court of Justice has dealt with this question on three occasions over the past decade, the most important verdict being in response to a petition against former prime minister Ehud Barak for continuing to negotiate a peace settlement with the Palestinian Authority after new elections had been declared. The court rejected the petition but established guidelines for caretaker governments. Supreme Court President Aharon Barak wrote that the fall of a government does not create a vacuum and that it remains in office to maintain continuity and stability. On the other hand, he wrote, a caretaker government must conduct itself "reasonably and proportionately" and to act with the restraint appropriate to its status, except in cases of emergency, where urgent action is required. On September 3, after Olmert reiterated that he would resign as soon as a new Kadima Party leader was elected, Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz wrote: "We cannot determine in advance exactly which government actions are permissible and which are not. We are talking about a 'delicate balance' as described in one of the High Court rulings, and, as has been stressed in the past, it is mainly an issue for the public, which should be debated in the political and public spheres, and in the parliamentary system which oversees the government." This question of the powers of Olmert's government has already come up during the current caretaker period, when the three Supreme Court members of the Judges Election Committee refused to vote on candidates to fill Supreme Court vacancies on the grounds that the government was a caretaker government. Two of the nine members of the committee are cabinet ministers. Mazuz disagreed with the justices and said there was no reason to cancel the election. However, since it required seven out of the nine committee members to choose the new members of the Supreme Court, the justices had the power to veto the vote. While Olmert continues to preside over the caretaker government and Livni has informed Peres that she cannot form a new government, the next move belongs to the president. According to the Basic Law: Government, Peres has three days to decide whether to assign the task of forming a government to some other MK or to inform the Knesset Speaker that he sees no possibility of establishing a new government. During those three days he may, if he chooses, consult with the Knesset factions. In this case, Peres has already begun to do so. If he does assign someone else to form a government, which is highly unlikely, that appointee will have 28 days to form a government. Should he fail, or should the president not assign a second MK to form a government, a period of 21 days begins in which a majority of the members of Knesset may request in writing that the president assign the task to a specific MK, conditional on the MK's consent in writing. If such a candidate is available, the president must charge him with the task within two days and the candidate has 14 days to form a government. If he fails to do so, he will inform the president that he is unable to do so and the president will inform the Knesset Speaker of the situation. At this point, the Knesset will automatically be considered to have dispersed and new elections will be held on the last Tuesday before the end of 90 days of the president's announcement. Assuming that Peres does not ask anyone else to form a government and that he takes three days to inform Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik that there is no possibility of forming a government, this part of the procedure will end on the evening of October 29. At that point, the 21-day countdown will begin, during which a majority of MKs can recommend a candidate from their ranks to try to form a government. During these 21 days, the Knesset may also pass a law calling for new elections. If so, it can set the date of the elections at a time later or earlier than the date that would automatically be set according to the procedures set down in the Basic Law: Government. Once again, assuming the Knesset does not pass such a law and does not agree on a candidate of its own, the 21-day period will end on November 19 and the 90-day countdown will begin. According to this calculation, the last Tuesday within this 90-day period will falls on February 17.