January 29, 2003

Lapid hails Shinui's 'great victory'

By Nina Gilbert

Shinui more than doubled its power in Tuesday's election and maybe have even tripled it, according to Channel 2, giving the party success far beyond its initial expectations.

Shinui won six seats in the 15th Knesset elections. Party officials initially said they were hoping for as many as 12 seats, and party members were truly euphoric when the exit polls predicted between 14 and 17 seats.

Shinui leader Yosef Lapid called the result a "great victory," promising to "change the face of Israeli society." Lapid said the historic opportunity to establish a secular national unity government cannot be missed.

Lapid, whose secular rights party wants all Jews to serve in the IDF, promised that his party would not launch a war between religious and secular Israelis, saying all he wants is equality.

He called on the Labor Party to drop its commitment not to join a national unity government, saying such a promise was "irresponsible."

The party was optimistic that the counting of soldiers' votes would surely nudge the number of seats for the party toward the higher prediction of 17 seats.

Shinui MK Yossi Paritzky said he does not yet see the party joining the coalition. "Ariel Sharon has to decide where he is headed and if he wants a stable government with a stable economy and a rational peace process," he said. Paritzky attributed Shinui's wild success in a large part to "the Labor Party not being able to deliver the goods."

Shinui was in the opposition for the entire 15th Knesset, a status shared only with the Arab parties and Herut.

Shinui's predicted win of 14 to 17 seats would catapult 8-11 unknowns into the Knesset. Probable new MKs include Ilan Shlagi (7), Mali Folishuk-Bloch (8), and Chen Reshef (9), all lawyers, followed by businessman Roni Barizon (10), accountant Ehud Rassabi, and three more lawyers: Eti Livni (12), Ilan Leibovitch (13), and Hemi Doron (14). In the party's 15th slot is Igal Yasinov, an immigrant from Ukraine, who said he was optimistic he would become an MK. Arela Golan, an architect, is 16th on the list, followed by Rona Menasovitch-Barda, a real estate appraiser, and Adir Binyamini, a 30-year-old student activist.

The party's success in this election follows a similar windfall in the 1999 elections, when the party's bid was based only on one MK, Avraham Poraz.

Poraz broke away from the Meretz faction after Shinui's council refused to approve a full-fledged merger with the Citizen's Rights Movement and Mapam.

He enlisted Lapid, a journalist and broadcaster, to stand as Shinui's figurehead and leader. Lapid's monologues in the 1999 election propaganda on the threat of a religious takeover of the country proved a rousing success, and the party won six seats.

But Shinui, which focused most of its efforts on campaigning against Shas being in government, was flabbergasted when Shas's power rose to 17 seats in the election, making it an obvious coalition partner instead of Shinui.

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