January 27, 2003

National Union concerned about being left out of coalition

By Etgar Lefkovits

Members of the National Union Party are growing increasingly concerned that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will try to form a Likud-Labor-Shinui government without them after Tuesday's election.

"Are you embarrassed by your friends?" MK Benny Elon asked Sharon at a press conference the party called last week to condemn an ongoing Likud campaign to court right-wing voters away from the National Union and the National Religious Party.

National Union leader Avigdor Lieberman has repeatedly contended that a majority of Likud voters are against the establishment of another unity government and would prefer to see a government made up of members of the nationalist camp, including the far-right and religious parties.

Public opinion polls, however, have consistently shown that an overwhelming majority favors the establishment of another national-unity government led by Sharon.

On Sunday, the National Union spokesman vehemently denied as "spurious" reports in Yediot Aharonot that frustration with Sharon's courting of the Labor Party has led Lieberman and his party to warn that they would recommend to the president that Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be appointed premier, a possibility also rejected by Netanyahu himself.

Speculation that the National Union which opinion polls forecast will win eight or nine seats will not be a part of any new government mounted earlier this month, following an interview Sharon gave William Safire of The New York Times, in which he reiterated his need for the center of the political map in any future government, as opposed to far-right or far-left parties.

"I won't put myself in the hands of any radical parties, neither of the left nor of the right. I can't have those who want to give up everything or those who want to keep everything," Sharon said.

Indeed, Likud officials have noted that it was Lieberman's "impossible to meet" terms after the Labor Party quit the government in October which forced Sharon to give up plans to establish a narrow right-wing government and call an early election.

In November when Sharon made the dramatic announcement, he condemned Lieberman, saying he was going to new elections because he would not give in to the "unacceptable demands" and "political blackmail" of the far-right.

Lieberman's tough conditions for joining the government reportedly included declarations by Sharon that the Oslo process was null and void, a public rejection of the US road map, which envisions an independent Palestinian state by 2005, and an agreement not to form another unity government after the election.

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