By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN, JPOST.COM STAFF
Gil Pensioners Party MKs met with Finance Minister Avraham Hirchson on Thursday and warned him that their faction would oppose the expansion of the coalition if their budgetary demands were not met.
The demands included receiving the welfare portfolio, canceling cuts in old age payments, and increasing the health ministry budget.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that he is reserving the welfare portfolio for United Torah Judaism (UTJ), whom he hopes to add to the coalition.
Pensioners leader Rafi Eitan was set to meet with Shas Chairman Eli Yishai and Labor Chairman Amir Peretz over the weekend to coordinate a strategy for obtaining a more socioeconomically friendly budget in return for the support of the three factions for the 2007 state budget.
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