jerusalem | Coalition building in Israel is never easy, and after his narrow election victory, Prime Minister-elect Ehud Olmert was finding it particularly tough.
On paper, it should have been simple. Olmert’s Kadima and the like-minded Labor, Pensioners and Meretz parties have 60 seats between them, just one short of a majority in the 120-member Knesset. The trouble was that Labor, the second-biggest party with 19 seats to Kadima’s 29, was driving a hard bargain.
But on Tuesday, April 4, all that changed. Olmert and Labor leader Amir Peretz appeared at a joint news conference confirming that they had been holding behind-the-scene talks.
“We are happy to announce that immediately after the president gives me the mission of putting together a government, we will open coalition talks that will allow us to form a government in which the Labor Party will be a senior partner,” Olmert declared.
President Moshe Katsav later announced that he would invite Olmert for a meeting Thursday, April 6 and would ask him there to form a government.
Both Labor and Kadima knew all along that in the end, the most likely scenario was a government led by Olmert, with Labor as a senior partner. The standoff apparently was over who gets the Finance Ministry. Labor wants it to carry out its socioeconomic reforms; Kadima wants to keep it to make sure government spending is kept under control.
After the news conference, there were suggestions that Labor might accept the Defense Ministry instead.
Over the weekend, however, Labor leaders had created a stir, suggesting that they hoped to form a national emergency government to deal with socioeconomic issues.
Their off-the-record argument was that the election results should be seen as a massive show of support for a new socioeconomic agenda and only tepid backing for Olmert’s plan for unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank. Labor, they whispered, would set up a government with the right and the fervently Orthodox, putting withdrawal plans on the back burner and focusing on issues like poverty, health and education.
Mathematically, it was just possible. Ideologically, it seemed like a bad April Fool’s joke.
Israeli media reaction across the board was scathing. “This is fraud,” wrote Sima Kadmon on the front page of Yediot Achronot. “It is a crude violation of an election promise.”
In Ma’ariv, Nadav Eyal called it “a disgusting maneuver,” and in Ha’aretz, Yossi Verter, in reference to Peretz’s thick whiskers, scoffed that “the new right has grown a mustache.”
Peretz quickly backed down. He put out a statement saying that he had no intention of building an “unnatural coalition.’
The ball was now in Katsav’s court. In the Israeli system, the president decides who gets the first chance to form a government and become prime minister. On Tuesday, Katsav said that after Peretz called him to express Labor’s support for Olmert, there were really no other candidates to form the next government.
So what are the realistic coalition possibilities? And what are the relative advantages and disadvantages of each?
Olmert has at least four coalition options:
1. Kadima-Labor-Pensioners-Meretz-Shas-United Torah Judaism
Advantages: A potentially stable government, giving Olmert a ruling majority of 78 in the 120-member Knesset. It would have 60 seats without the fervently religious, so they would find it difficult to pressure Olmert by threatening to bolt the coalition.
Disadvantages: Olmert would still have to pay a relatively high price in socioeconomic and religious concessions to the fervently religious to get them to join his coalition. He would also have to give Labor senior ministries, possibly finance.
2. Kadima-Labor-Pensioners-Shas-United Torah Judaism
Advantages: Without Meretz, it would have a comfortable majority of 73, and be less dovish-looking.
Disadvantages: It would leave Olmert more susceptible to fervently religious pressure. Olmert would need Meretz and Arab support from outside the coalition for a majority for withdrawal.
3. Kadima-Labor-Pensioners-Yisrael Beiteinu-Meretz
Advantages: It would have a potentially stable majority of 66 and need a far smaller payoff than a coalition with the fervently religious.
Disadvantages: Yisrael Beiteinu might not support Olmert’s withdrawal plan. More significantly, Labor says it won’t sit in the same coalition as Yisrael Beiteinu because of its advocacy of borders that put tens of thousands of Israeli Arabs on the Palestinian side.
4. Kadima-Yisrael Beiteinu-Pensioners-Meretz-Shas-Torah Judaism
Advantages: Without Labor, there would be no major socioeconomic payoff, and Kadima would retain all the major portfolios.
Disadvantages: Olmert would not be able to pursue his unilateral withdrawal policy. The coalition makeup would hurt Israel’s international standing. The coalition would have a majority of 65, but any one party could withdraw or threaten to withdraw and bring the government down.