While we were away, the Knesset imploded with enthusiasm:
A massive majority of some 80 lawmakers approved eight bills to dissolve the Knesset on Monday evening. President Moshe Katsav said Monday evening he would accept a decision made by lawmakers to disband the Knesset and hold early elections on March 28. “My goal is that, during the interim period until elections, the state will continue to operate properly. The prime minister’s hands must not be tied,” Katsav said.
The president intends to ensure that Knesset factions will allow Sharon to nominate ministers to serve during the interim period in the event that early elections are ordered by legislative decree rather than by presidential order.
So already, those who hoped that disbanding the government would hamper Sharon are doing very well.
Elections March 28. There’s also stuff in JPost’s Q&A regarding parliamentary constraints and timing that you absolutely must get game on.
Despite all outward signs – like their total disarray, messy leadership fight, and total hatred by the Israeli public – it looks like the Likud might actually have mis-stepped here. If you don’t trust Ha’aretz’s crowing (and we don’t – if only because Aluf Benn couldn’t help but insert a snarky “the road map…. aims to create a Palestinian state, for those who have forgotten” into an already insufferably smug article), then how about the fact that even the Jerusalem Post – that oh so far right wing newspaper – is now openly mocking the Likud:
Likud activists should be forgiven for denying this, but yesterday their hard-won, seemingly shatterproof and increasingly abusive hegemony of Israeli politics has effectively come to its end… when it finally won by a knockout, in February 2003, garnering 40 Knesset seats compared with Labor’s 19, Likud members felt they were finally entering the political promised land of indefinite dominance… They could hardly have been more conceited.
Ha’aretz is also keeping track of Likud glitterati fleeing for Sharon’s new party (hint: more than one-third, which entitles them to Likud treasury funds) – almost like they’re enjoying the spectacle. If only someone could have seen this coming.
