Israel can't afford further inexpert leadership or further political drift.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFlivni 63(photo credit: )
Ehud Olmert's resignation has been handled with the appropriate understated ceremony - the short meeting with the president, the president's subsequent brief political eulogy, the procession of party representatives filing through Beit Hanassi to make their recommendations regarding a successor.
But this cannot mask the dismal nature of this latest twist in Israel's hapless governance. And the portents as regards our elected leaders' behavior in its aftermath are also far from encouraging.
Defying the scathing conclusions of his own committee of inquiry into the handling of the Second Lebanon War, which did everything short of demanding his resignation last year, Olmert clung to his job, insisting he was the man to correct the errors of strategy, preparation, consultation and decision-making that war exposed.
His foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, rightly recognized the absurdity of this conclusion, told him privately and publicly that he ought to step down, but carried on as his right-hand woman nonetheless.
Only more than a year later, when his inability to swiftly lay to rest an accumulation of corruption allegations left him with little alternative, did Olmert first reluctantly sanction new leadership elections in Kadima, then reluctantly conclude that he could not himself compete, and finally reluctantly tender his resignation to President Peres.
The political instability that preceded his resignation has been acutely damaging to Israel, weakening its credibility as it tries to impress upon the international community the urgency for tougher sanctions against Iran, and undermining the prospects, however faint they may be, of substantive and constructive progress in the negotiations and contacts with the Palestinians and Syrians.
BUT THE drift, unfortunately, isn't over yet. Yes, Olmert has resigned as prime minister. But that doesn't mean he has left office. Instead, Livni is now hard at work trying to tie in the existing coalition, or adjust its membership, to ensure she can take over.
Already, she has been deeply compromised. She managed to sustain the image of integrity despite having stuck with a premier she had said ought to have resigned. But she has emerged less pristine from the Kadima leadership battle, where her 431-vote margin of victory makes Binyamin Netanyahu's 29,457 prime ministerial margin over Shimon Peres in 1996 look like a landslide.
Her victory was aided by the Kadima election regulator's decision to keep polling stations open late, even as the TV news shows prematurely screened exit polls showing that Mofaz supporters needn't waste their time casting a ballot for their crushingly defeated candidate. But the polls were off mark - way off - and Mofaz, victim of such erroneous surveys throughout the campaign, has every reason to feel cheated.
In prematurely celebrating victory, furthermore - declaring within minutes of the polling stations closing that "the good guys" had won - Livni looked impetuous and inexperienced. Mofaz's supporters are still pressing acute concerns about several hundred votes that seem to have disappeared or been unfairly excluded.
Livni's Kadima victory will not be overturned on appeal. But far from
giving her momentum, her "success" and Mofaz's concurrent bitterness have weakened her from the start of her party leadership career.
Meanwhile, her coalition partners, notably in Labor and Shas, have predictably been playing a little hard to get - calculating whether their interests are best served by crowning Livni as premier, or by cold-shouldering her and setting Israel on the road to general elections, with Olmert the caretaker leader en route.
Immune because of our electoral system from direct accountability to specific constituents, our politicians often seem to forget that they are elected not for their own convenience, but to do our will. What Israel's voters crave now is competent, stable government, focused on the national interest - as soon as possible.
That requires our politicians to put aside their narrow concerns and either, if they consider her capable of effectively leading this country, partnering the new head of Kadima in a solid coalition, or, if they do not, moving swiftly to general elections.
With Iran closing in on the bomb, Mahmoud Abbas nearing the end of his term, and a range of other diplomatic, military, economic and social challenges, Israel cannot afford further inexpert leadership, and dare not indulge in further political drift.
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