Sep. 27, 2005
Sharon prevails in Likud showdown
By GIL HOFFMAN

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s opponents in the Likud, led by Binyamin Netanyahu, narrowly failed on Monday to force a November primary at which Sharon’s leadership of the party would have been contested.

The bid for a November contest was rejected by a margin of 104 votes in a bitter tussle that drew 2,789 of the Likud’s central committee members — 91.4 percent of the eligible voters — to the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds. The final tally, announced by committee chairman Tzahi Hanegbi a little after midnight, was 1,433—1,329 (with 27 presumed spoiled ballots or abstentions).

When the results reached Sharon’s campaign headquarters at the fairgrounds, his supporters opened a bottle of champagne, chanted, "Arik, king of Israel," and lifted the leaders of his campaign up in their chairs.

The party’s primary is now to take place no later than mid-2006 — six months before general elections, which are formally to be held by next November.

Sharon succeeded in coming back and winning after polls had predicted that he would lose by a significant margin. He won despite the recent endorsements of the advancement of the primary by ministers Limor Livnat, Dan Naveh and Yisrael Katz.

Sharon’s associates said he would decide his political future in the next few days. Sources close to Sharon said he would demand that Netanyahu, MK Uzi Landau and the Likud rebels stop their efforts to topple his premiership and remove him from the Likud chairmanship.

"The time has come for the minority of provocateurs in the Likud to understand that they don’t represent the Likud party or the Israeli public,‘ a source close to Sharon said. ’Now is the time to unite under Sharon to win the next election."

Netanyahu, in his response to the result, stated, "I am a democrat and I will accept the decision of the majority.‘ But he made plain that his bid to oust Sharon as party leader is not over. ’The real battle will come in the primaries, and there I will win," he predicted, before repeating his demand that Sharon pledge to stay in the Likud regardless of the result of that contest.

Coalition chairman Gideon Sa’ar, who supported the effort to move up the primary, said that "the central committee has given its verdict and all of the Likud representatives have to accept it and act to unify the party."

The day was marred by several brawls, accusations of forgeries, and the continuation of mutual recriminations over who was responsible for sabotaging Sharon’s microphone as he tried to address Sunday’s central committee meeting.

The most serious brawl occurred when several members of the Labor Youth organization started shouting "we are sick of you corrupt people" outside Sharon’s campaign headquarters. Several central committee members physically attacked the young Laborites before security guards forced them out of the fairgrounds. Other brawls broke out between Sharon and Netanyahu supporters.

Each side accused the other of forging votes. A woman in the Sharon camp went to a polling station to vote and was told that she had already voted. In her polling station, 130 people had voted and 135 votes were cast. Hanegbi insisted as he read out the tallies, however, that the voting process had been entirely clean.

Netanyahu’s associates responded that the Sharon campaign’s charges of forgeries were "excuses of losers," but they later made their own accusations of forgeries. One of Netanyahu’s observers at a polling station caught two Sharon loyalists attempting to vote twice by posing as polling station observers.

Police began investigating the microphone sabotaging incident, which both sides continued to blame on each other. Both sides filed police complaints and are cooperating with the investigators.

"The extremists in the party are responsible,‘ a Sharon adviser said. ’We are not so crazy as to allow anyone in our camp to embarrass Sharon. This did not help him.‘ When Sharon came to the fairgrounds to vote in the afternoon, he joked about the incident. ’Can you hear me, are you sure you can hear me?" Sharon asked reporters before calling upon central committee members to come and vote.

Netanyahu told reporters when he voted that there was "no room in the Likud" for saboteurs.

"Today the members of the Likud central committee will decide on the direction of the movement — whether we are Likud or Meretz,‘ Netanyahu told reporters after voting. ’I hope that today [the central committee members] will decide upon democracy in the Likud, put all conflicts behind us, and come together behind the majority’s decision in order to push the Likud forward in a united manner."

Former prime minister Ehud Barak said Labor should exploit the divide in the Likud and unite around the candidacy of Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres for the Labor chairmanship in the November 8 leadership race and for the premiership.

"Labor must unite to take advantage of the crumbling of the Likud,‘ Barak said in a Rosh Hashana toast with supporters in Tel Aviv. ’It’s sad to see the ruling party disintegrate and crumble in a way that can never be repaired."

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