Early elections in Israel likely

Andrei Pravov, RIA Novosti, Moscow

The shadow of early elections is again looming over Israel. The country's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has warned that that is quite possible, declaring that he would resign in case the Knesset (Israeli parliament) does not approve the draft state budget for 2003. To all appearances, everything will follow precisely this pattern.

Several days ago Israeli parliamentarians went on holiday. The new Knesset session will open on Oct. 13, with the discussion of the state budget draft to become one of the first, if not the first, item on its agenda.

In the meantime, the given document, known as "Silvan Shalom's plan" after the current Finance Minister who created it, is causing the dissatisfaction in the Israeli society. Above all, the draft budget provides for considerable reductions of various types of social programs, including grants to old and to single people, for housing, and so on.

The Israeli economy has literally been in turmoil in the past few months. Military expenses have gone up drastically, the once very lucrative foreign tourism industry has dropped to an unprecedented low, construction has been curtailed, high technology enterprises are facing problems, and the unemployment rates are going up rapidly.

Hence, the striving of the government to find a way out of the situation and, to be precise, to save about two billion dollars by any means, however unpopular they may be.

At the end of July, the draft budget passed through the voting of the government members with great difficulty, and that thanks to serious pressure on the part of Ariel Sharon, who is said to have "personally worked" with almost every minister.

According to many estimates, the "Silvan Shalom Plan" will be voted down in the Knesset already in the first reading. Observers believe that this will happen not without the help of two of the biggest parliamentary factions -- the Avody left party and the ultra-religious SHAS.

Both these parties are in Ariel Sharon's government and would obviously like to remain in it. But they seem to have nowhere else to go. For example, the SHAS deputies simply cannot vote for the document which contains the intention to cut social assistance to large families, since most of these families are religious and constitute the basis of the party's electorate. The Avody party is in a no less complex situation.

Its representatives in government have already demonstrated their attitude to the draft budget by having, together with the SHAS ministers, unanimously voted against it. And still, observers believe that, though the Avody has drifted a lot to the right in the past few years and its positions on many issues ever more frequently coincide with those of the Likud right-wing bloc, its name is translated as "Party of Labour".

And thus it does not seem proper to support the authorities' drive against the working people's achievements, even with the leadership's great desire to preserve the ministerial posts. This may cost it its electorate.

In other words, the line-up of forces at the October voting in the Knesset, in principle is clear, with 26 deputies of the Avody party and 17 from SHAS voting against the state budget, and that is more than one-third of the 120 deputies. Things are clear with the remaining 18 votes necessary for the document to be blackballed. Obviously, the entire left-wing opposition will vote against it.

And then, as Ariel Sharon firmly promises, he will disband the government and the Knesset, after which early elections will have to be held in Israel within the next three months. Incidentally, there have not been elections in Israel at the appointed time in the past ten years. Something always happened, and the elections had to be held ahead of time.

As observers believe, Sharon has his own serious interests for holding early elections. Above all, according to many estimates, their time offers little chance for victory at the primaries in Likuk for Benjamin Netanyahu's victory, that main rival of the current Prime Minister.

So far, he has not obviously managed to group together his forces and, to all appearances, is still getting ready for general elections in October 2003, as planned.

According to many estimates, elections will be held in Israel in January, or at the latest in February. And then, all political life in the country, already beginning with October, will be mainly subordinated to that forthcoming event alone, with all others retreating to the background.