Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon fired his main coalition partner Wednesday after a humiliating parliamentary defeat that left him scrambling to avoid early elections and save his plan to withdraw from Gaza.
Sharon dismissed the Shinui party shortly after it defied him by voting against the 2005 state budget in a first reading in the Knesset, and aides said he would immediately approach the center-left Labor Party to prevent the collapse of his government.
The parliamentary mutiny marked the sharpest threat to Sharon’s grip on power since he was re-elected in January 2003 in a crushing victory driven by popular support for his tough handling of a Palestinian uprising.
After a stormy Knesset session, Sharon summoned Shinui ministers to his office, handed them their dismissal notices and told them: “It was nice working with you.”
The dismissal leaves Sharon’s Likud party in control of only 40 of parliament’s 120 seats. Even with Shinui’s 15, Sharon commanded only 55 seats in the Knesset and survived through backroom deals forging ad hoc majorities for individual votes. He could no longer govern without Shinui or another significant ally.
No-confidence vote on horizon
Sharon, without a base in parliament, could face a no-confidence vote over the economy Monday, which could set off the countdown to elections. If Sharon loses the ballot, President Moshe Katsav must give him or another party leader up to 44 days to form a majority government. If that fails, a general election must be held within 60 days.
Sharon was expected to immediately launch negotiations to replace Shinui with the Labor Party to restore his majority, with perhaps a religious faction added to pad his margin.
That appeared to be his only option to avert snap elections two years ahead of schedule and an indefinite delay to his plan for “disengaging” from conflict with Palestinians by removing all Jewish settlements from Gaza and a few from the West Bank.
The government must pass the budget by March 31 or resign. The budget process has stumbled over strong opposition from left-wing and religious parties to steep cuts in social spending.
Having Labor on board would solidify majorities for the budget and for Sharon’s “disengagement plan.” But powerful Likud rebels bent on scuttling his Gaza plan have balked at any such unity coalition.
Sharon, a former general known as the “Bulldozer,” voiced confidence that he would prevail.
“If they [Shinui] vote against, they will be sent home immediately. There will be no elections,” he was quoted by the YNET newspaper Web site as saying before the budget vote.
Assaf Shariv, an aide to the prime minister, told Reuters: “We will get the budget passed at another date in the near future. We will definitely begin talking to Labor. I don’t know if it will start tonight, but we will” invite Labor into the government.
Sharon hopes to remove all 21 settlements in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank in 2005 under a plan backed by Washington.
The hurdle: religious spending
Shinui backs the Gaza plan. But it mutinied over Sharon’s promise of 290 million shekels, about $64 million, in subsidies to projects of an ultra-Orthodox religious party in exchange for votes he needed for preliminary approval of the budget.
Labor is parliament’s second-largest group, with 22 seats, and a dovish proponent of yielding territory in pursuit of peace with the Palestinians.
Likud’s hard-line rightist Central Committee forced Sharon to suspend talks with Labor in August in hope of thwarting any retreat from lands that were taken in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
But Sharon hoped that Likud rebels, facing public distaste at any prospect of a third national vote in less than four years and a consistent majority favoring a pullout in opinion polls, would relent on Labor rather than risk elections.
Immigration Minister Tsipi Livni, a Sharon loyalist, said the Central Committee could now have a change of heart over Labor.
“Most committee members don’t want our government to fall,” he said. “They understand that to force early elections is a mistake the right wing repeated in the past with poor results.”
