Political earthquake

If Pres. Bush split from the Republicans and formed his own party or PM
Blair did the same with Labor in the UK, that would be the equivalent of the
political earthquake that has hit Israel. After much consideration PM
Sharon decided to leave Likud and form his own new party, to be named
"Kadimah" (meaning forward) or the National Responsibility Party. Many
people thought that he would never do this, particularly since he was one
of the founders of Likud.
But, his reasoning was that even if the Likud rebels agreed to reunite with
him and they fought the election campaign together, after the election there
was no guarantee of retaining unity, or on the contrary, the likelihood would
be that the same rebels would split again with him over the peace process.
This means that by forming his own party he feels he will have a free hand
to decide his own policy without their hindrance.
However, this may be an illusion, since no party in Israeli history has ever
won more than the 50% of seats (61 in the Knesset) required to form a
uni-party Government, all Israeli Governments have been coalitions. Present
polls project that Sharon's new party would receive ca. 36 seats, Labor
ca. 25 seats and Likud ca. 16 seats. Since it is highly unlikely that
either Sharon or Peretz could stand to form a unity coalition with each
other, particularly since Peretz just withdrew Labor from Sharon's current
coalition and forced the Government to fall, then ironically it is likely
that Sharon would be forced to form a coalition with Likud in the next
Government. An alternative is that he would form a coalition with the right
wing religious parties, but that would be worse than Likud in terms of
getting his policies adopted, especially if they involve further withdrawals
from Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).
Sharon has stated that he does not intend to carry out any more unilateral
withdrawals, but he said the same thing about Gaza before he became PM,
how the Israeli presence there was essential for Israel's defense. So it is
difficult for the right to trust him. Unless Sharon wins a large majority,
his formation of a new Government may be in jeopardy.
Sharon's decision has left the Likud in a mess. At present 12-14 Likud
leaders, including many Cabinet members, have decided to join Sharon,
including Deputy PM Ehud Olmert. There are now seven candidates for the
leadership race in Likud. Bibi Netanyahu is the front runner, but other
strong candidates, include Uzi Landau, leader of the rebels, Silvan Shalom
FM, and so on. Only a few Labor leaders have decided to join Sharon,
surprisingly Shimon Peres is not one of them.
Another less significant change in the coming Knesset is that the threshold
for entry of any party has been raised from 1.5 to 2% of the total vote.
This of course will have its greatest effect on the smaller parties,
possibly excluding the extreme left and the Arab parties from the Knesset.
In order to overcome this it is possible that the three main Arab parties,
will combine, if they can overcome their mutual antagonisms. It is unlikely
that Sharon would include any of them in his coalition, even if he wanted to
make concessions to the PA, although the Labor Party under Peretz could make
a coalition with them.
So the effects of the earthquake may be less than expected, but at
present the political future in Israel is even more unpredictable than
usual. The only certain thing is that there will be an election in March
2006.