Mofaz vows to form coalition by new year

Livni's associates say she has not taken action to form new government before Wednesday's primary.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
mofaz good 224 88 (photo credit: Defense Ministry )
mofaz good 224 88
(photo credit: Defense Ministry )
Kadima leadership candidate Shaul Mofaz surprised Kadima members with a new year's resolution on Monday night, telling supporters at a rally in Netanya that he will already have a new coalition ready by Rosh Hashana. Mofaz promised at a Kadima event in Kiryat Ono last month that he would form a government in time for the November 11 municipal elections. Following talks with Shas ministers and representatives of three factions outside the current coalition, Mofaz said that understandings would be reached earlier than he had expected to form a new government. "My goal is to form a new government as soon as possible to maintain governmental stability and avoid an election that is against the interests of Israel," Mofaz told the crowd. The new factions Mofaz intends to add to the coalition are United Torah Judaism, Justice for Pensioners and the National Union-National Religious Party. Livni has expressed interested in bringing UTJ and Meretz into the government. Livni's associates said she, unlike Mofaz, had taken no action to form a new government before the primary on Wednesday. They denied reports that she was threatening Shas with the replacement of its 12 mandates in the coalition with UTJ and Meretz's 11. The Likud released a list of messages it will try to promote ahead of the Kadima primary about how whomever wins the race was part of the failure of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government and emphasizing that there was no chance of the Likud joining a Kadima-led government. Likud MK Yuval Steinitz went farther, issuing personal insults to both Livni and Mofaz. "Both candidates are not fit," Steinitz told Channel 10. "Livni has no courage or ability to make decisions. She displayed weakness by pandering to the leaders of the world. Mofaz is responsible for the failure and the lack of readiness of our soldiers in the Second Lebanon War. He lacks the personality and the brains and [the] minimal intelligence. There will be generations of crying if one of them leads Israel." A Channel 10 poll broadcast Monday predicted that Livni would beat Mofaz 47 percent to 28%, and that Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit and Public Security Minister Avi Dichter would only receive 6% each. According to the poll of 1800 registered Kadima members, Livni would beat Mofaz one-on-one 50% to 33%, with 17% undecided. In an embarrassment for Livni's campaign, Channel 1's Ayala Hasson broke the news that her strategist, Eyal Arad, is one of the 3,700 people who were recently found to be members in both Kadima and the Likud and have been barred from voting in the primary. Arad said he wrote a letter to Likud director-general Gadi Arieli two years ago cancelling his Likud membership, but his name had never been erased from the party's rolls. He unwittingly paid the Likud's membership fee by standing order from his bank account in April. Kadima's central elections committee decided Monday that people who were members of both parties will be allowed to vote if they sign a form at the polling station pledging that they left the Likud by the end of Kadima's membership drive. Livni's campaign said that the committee, chaired by retired judge Dan Arbel, reportedly rejected some 400 forms brought by the Mofaz campaign of Kadima members who vowed that they had left the Likud, because the forms were identical and appeared to have been forged. But Arbel denied the claim, saying that he accepted the forms. "Someone is spreading rumors," Arbel said. "I did not reject a single form." Arbel did reject a request from Mofaz's campaign to allow hundreds of Kadima members vacationing in Eilat to vote there instead of in their home towns. Mofaz's campaign wanted to allow members to vote in Eilat, because a sports festival for labor union members is being held there on the day of the primary and most labor union members support Mofaz. The committee decided that the only members who would be allowed to vote from out of town were soldiers, hospital patients and people taking government-sanctioned educational courses.