January 27, 2003

Likud sees Lieberman, not Labor, as its foe

By GIL HOFFMAN and DAVID RUDGE

The Likud intends to focus its Election Day efforts on attracting right-wing and Russian immigrant votes away from Avigdor Lieberman's National Union Party, and not on its traditional foes in Labor, Likud campaign officials said Sunday.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon instructed the Likud campaign to increase its Election Day budget to an unprecedented NIS 10 million, in an effort to specifically target voters from Lieberman's party, which he sees as the greatest threat to his ability to create a stable government.

The Likud will also pursue prospective Shas and Yisrael B'Aliya voters.

"This is the first election that I remember that our Election Day effort is not focused on Labor, but on Shas, National Union, and Yisrael B'Aliya," said Industry and Trade Minister Dan Naveh, who chairs the Likud's Election Day campaign. "We have to tell the public that if they vote for smaller parties, it will be more difficult for the Likud to form a government."

The National Union has run advertisements telling voters that "real Likudniks" will vote for their party. The party's propaganda suggests that a vote for the National Union will strengthen the Likud, but Sharon has said repeatedly in campaign events that voting for other parties will only weaken the Likud. In a press conference at the party's Tel Aviv headquarters, Likud campaign chairman Ehud Olmert, accused the National Union of deliberately misleading new immigrant voters, unfamiliar with the one-ballot, indirect election system, that voting for it is really a vote for Sharon. Communications Minister Reuven Rivlin, Sharon's closest ally in the cabinet, said the prime minister wants to be able to form a government with a right-wing majority that will not depend on the National Union for its survival. He said the Likud's effort to add a few mandates is intended to ensure that he will not need Lieberman to form a coalition, if Labor rejects Sharon's offer to form a national-unity government. "A right-wing government will get us in trouble with the Americans, who want to push [US President George W.] Bush's diplomatic initiatives immediately after the elections," Rivlin said. "Sharon wants to form a coalition according to the present government's guidelines. He can bear the National Religious Party, but he knows Lieberman is a troublemaker." Sharon still blames Lieberman for his role in advancing the election. He had hoped to form a narrow rightist government after Labor left the coalition, but Lieberman responded with his infamous speech warning Sharon that his party cannot be treated like chewing gum.

Olmert said Sharon intends to make every effort to build as wide a government as possible, with rightist parties, Labor, and Shinui.

"We are not ruling out our traditional partners," Olmert said. "We are loyal to our partners and want to continue to be loyal to our partners, but we don't want to be dependent only on them."

Rivlin said he has quietly been in contact with Labor officials about joining the government. He predicted that at least some Labor MKs would eventually join, possibly leading to a split in Labor.

"Labor needs to go with us, because otherwise they'll disappear," Rivlin said. "There will probably be some kind of clash, leading to a division between people who want Labor to join a social-democratic party with Meretz people, and centrists, who want to join the government."

Top Labor officials vigorously vowed to remain united and outside Sharon's government. "Ariel Sharon is running scared and he will do everything possible to mislead the public," party chairman Amram Mitzna said on a campaign stop in the South. "He should stick to talking about his own party. Obviously there won't be a split in the party."

MK Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said talk of a unity government is "foolish." "Sharon is dreaming dreams, planning plans talking about unity, but I say that whoever is taking about unity under Sharon is talking nonsense," he said. "I can tell you that there are no contacts, there is no talking and definitely no understandings with the Likud. No one will divide us. We will be a unified and cohesive party even after the election."

Despite this, Sharon vowed at the Likud's convention in Haifa, Mitzna's city, to establish a new national-unity government.

"In the struggle facing us now, we need two things unity and stability," he said. "I said in the past I would form a unity government and I did and I will do it again."

Sharon stressed that the battle is not yet over and that only an overwhelming Likud victory will guarantee a stable government that would not be prey to pressure from small parties.

He warned of the dangers of complacency and of the need for a strong Likud to avoid another election in the not-too-distant future. "This is something we should all remember either it's Mahal, or fresh elections," said Sharon who noted that previous Likud governments had been brought down by the extreme right wing.

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