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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan | |
| Olmert saves govt in last-minute deal | |
| 2008-06-26 | |
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert averted a major crisis on Wednesday, reaching agreement with his Labour allies for them to reverse a decision to vote to dissolve parliament, a move that could have brought down the government. Under the accord, Olmert agreed to a demand that his Kadima party hold primary elections by September 25 and Labour undertook not to back opposition efforts to bring down the government, parliamentary sources said.
Kadima’s leadership is now scheduled to meet by July 10 to fix a date for the primaries, which will choose a party chief and were expected to pit Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz and possibly Olmert. On Monday, 15 of the 19 Labour MPs had voted in favour of Barak’s decision to support the dissolution bill on Wednesday. Barak had also threatened earlier this month to quit Olmert’s coalition government if the prime minister did not resign over suspicions he had illegally accepted cash from a US businessman. Labour is Olmert’s key partner in government and without its support the prime minister’s fragile coalition would not have the required 61 seats for a majority in the 120-member parliament. Olmert has not ruled out running in the primary, but political analysts doubt he would be able to draw enough support. “He has lost popular legitimacy,” said Hanan Cristal, a political commentator with Israeli public radio. | |
| Posted by:Fred |