Netanyahu Calls for Elections in Israel, Rejects Livni Offer

[Purveyor]

By Gwen Ackerman and Jonathan Ferziger

Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the opposition Likud Party, called for early elections, rejecting Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's offer to join a unity cabinet as she seeks to cobble together a governing coalition.

Livni was chosen yesterday by President Shimon Peres to form a government after winning a Kadima Party primary to succeed Ehud Olmert, who is now the acting premier. The former Mossad agent would be the first woman since Golda Meir to lead Israel as the economy expands at the slowest pace in five years and peace talks with the Palestinians stall.

``We need to do one thing: let the people of the nation choose a new prime minister and a new government,'' Netanyahu told reporters today in Tel Aviv. The next elections are scheduled for 2010.

Netanyahu's snub is forcing Livni, 50, to try to hold together Olmert's coalition, which included the Labor Party and the ultra-Orthodox Shas party. Olmert and his partners controlled 64 seats in the 120-member Knesset. Livni met Minister of Industry and Trade Eli Yishai, head of Shas, and planned to lobby Labor Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Shas and Labor have 31 seats. Kadima has 29 seats.

``This is all a ritual, a coalition game with a lot of background noise and it is hard to tell how it will end,'' Gidi Rahat, a political scientist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said by phone. ``What we are hearing in public is all about raising the price of joining the coalition. But the agreements, in the end, will be made behind closed doors.''

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[Tarc]

1. Ahh, Netanyahu. Kinda like Cheney, but worse.

Please, Israelis, show some sense and don't vote this asshole or his party back into power.

[LeftishBrit]

2. I don't think there was ever much chance of his joining...

and the government would be better without him in it, anyway. I just hope that Livni beats him in the next election!