Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is fighting for his political life again.
The man who has been eulogized countless times on both the military and political battlefields has just five days left to save his political career, or at least his career inside the Likud.
Sharon is trying to reach as many as possible of the 3000 Likud central committee members to implore them not to shorten the life of this Likud government. Meanwhile former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and MK Uzi Landau are telling the committee members that Sharon must be overthrown because he left the Likud ideologically long ago.
Monday’s vote in the central committee will determine whether the Likud activists are willing to forgive Sharon for the disengagement plan and allow him to hold on to the leadership of the party and the nation for at least a few more months. The committee members will be deciding whether their anger at disengagement is worth the risk of disengaging themselves from the political patronage positions that come with holding onto the reins of power.
The latest allegations against Sharon that he raised funds illegally in New York would be his downfall were he in any other party. Former prime minister Ehud Barak succeeded in using the technicalities of a problematic membership drive in his party to temporarily delay Labor’s race and his own political collapse.
But recent history has proven that the Likud is different. Likudniks are emotional people who care less about potential corruption charges and more about their irrational fears that they are being persecuted by the left-wing establishment that still controls much of the prosecution and the media.
When Shas was propelled to 17 mandates in the 1999 election, it was the Likudniks who gave the party the additional seats because they were angered by what they perceived as the political prosecution of Shas leader Aryeh Deri. The so-called Aryeh Deri effect helped Sharon win big in the 2003 election when his Labor challenger, Amram Mitzna, called him a mafioso.
The reports on Channel 10 of alleged campaign violations and Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz’s decision to open a probe may actually work in Sharon’s favor. He can tell Likud activists that he is no longer the darling of the media and his exoneration in two separate investigations no longer holds weight.
Now that disengagement is complete, Sharon has stopped being the proverbial etrog, safeguarded by the media from all harm. He is once again being targeted by the press and the Attorney-General’s Office, the two institutions that Likud activists detest almost as much as Palestinian terrorists.
Likudniks have already started complaining to Sharon about his "lynching in the press." The latest polls show that the vote on Monday will be extremely close. The more people who come out to vote, the better it is for Sharon, and the more the issue of the day switches from the post-disengagement era to anything else, the more his supporters will be willing to come out and vote.
This scandal, ironically, could be just what Sharon needs to remind Likudniks that he is one of their own and it could give him the political boost he requires to remain in the Prime Minister’s Office.
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