MR Political Roundup 2006-01-05
What everyone's concerned about: Prime Minister Sharon's health has unfortunately not improved. In addition to being nationally and culturally tragic, his medical condition has precise legal and political consequences. While Sharon is "temporarily incapacitated," Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert runs the country. The moment that doctors declare that attempts to revive the Prime Minister have failed (that is, the moment that PM Sharon moves from being "temporarily incapacitated" to "permanently incapacitate") a new leader has to be deliberately chosen. And as the Attorney General notified the cabinet this morning, according to the new Basic Law, Olmert is not the only Kadima MK who be so chosen :
If the prime minister is prevented from filling his post, the government will be authorized to elect one of its members, who is also a member of the PM's faction, to replace him in office.
This article is a little vague - the Cabinet chooses who will run the country, and there are three restrictions on who that person can be. The person has to be a member of the PM's own faction, a Member of the Knesset, and a government minister. So for instance, Shaul Mofaz isn't eligible - he is a member of Kadima and he's a minister, but he's not an MK. Peres isn't eligible either - although he's a minister and an MK, he's not a member of Kadima. Tzachi Hanegbi also isn't really eligible, but that's probably because he's a shameless criminal who had to resign from the Knesset. That's not really relevant, but it's fun to repeat.
This Ha'aretz article does a slightly better job mapping out the various options and challenges facing the government:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is currently defined as temporarily incapacitated, but should this definition change to permanently incapacitated, the cabinet will have to meet immediately to choose an acting premier. Attorney General Menachem Mazuz said this during a special cabinet session called Thursday to discuss the legal implications of Sharon's condition... In this case, the possible candidates would be Olmert, Tzipi Livni, Meir Sheetrit, Gideon Ezra and Abraham Hirchson. The other two Kadima ministers, Shaul Mofaz and Tzachi Hanegbi, are not MKs...
If Sharon is declared permanently incapacitated, the Kadima ministers will presumably decide among themselves who should become acting premier and use their cabinet majority to get their choice elected. However, if they cannot agree, the four Likud ministers - who have postponed their planned cabinet resignation in light of Sharon's illness - could wind up casting the decisive votes. That would create a bizarre situation - the acting premier, who would also presumably be Kadima's prime ministerial candidate in the elections, would effectively have been chosen by a rival party.
The other important opinion that Attorney General Mofaz gave during the cabinet meeting was that elections absolutely will can and legally can not be postponed. So Israel will choose a new Prime Minster on March 28, for better or worse. There is nothing that can derail the election short of a legal finding that war has made voting impossible. We know you've heard differently today. Please disregard that. It is incorrect. We promise.
Kadima
The Ha'aretz article linked to above ends with the following paragraph:
[Mier] Sheetrit [a Kadima MK]… hastened to make his preference known: "In my belief, Olmert can lead Kadima in the elections and establish the next government," he said
This seems weird to us, since everyone else (including most of Ha'aretz's political experts) interpreted Sheetrit's call as a direct challenge to Olmert for the leadership of Kadima. One political junkie, unable to conceal his joy at having a close election and a relevant life, went so far as to say that Sheetrit was asking the right question - although "perhaps" he "ran a little too fast". Watching Sheetrit make that challenge on Channel 10 was kind of absurd. All the commentators went nuts as soon as he said that the party leadership has to be decided ASAP (because it was obvious that he was challenging Olmert) - then he immediately backed off and said that it was inappropriate to discuss politics while Sharon's health was in question. Then he repeated his challenge again. And backed off again. On that very program, Roni Bar-On (who's quoted in the Ha'aretz article that correctly describes Sheetrit's comments as a challenge to Olmert) threw his support behind Olmert. But that won't be enough - very soon, Olmert is going to have a leadership battle on his hands. It's impossible to know the contours of that battle until more people show their cards.
We believe that predictions of Kadima's demise have been exaggerated. Political scientists and observers of the highest caliber are declaring that Sharon was the only glue holding Kadima together - but it bears noticing that most of them have been skeptical about Kadima from the beginning (Daniel Pipes, Daniel Drezner). Not that they're necessarily wrong - just a little too quick. In fact we - with our perhaps exaggerated idea of Sharon's power and relevance - might at first be inclined to agree with them. But for the fact that we simply can't figure out where all those political superstars in Kadima are going to go. Labor is already stacked with Peretz's sycophants. The Likud is still dominated by the Central Committee and by Netanyahu - neither famous for their magnanimousness in victory. Even if Kadima MKs wanted to jump off the Kadima ship, they're not going to do it if jumping overboard means they'll drown.
The next few days will be critical, but as one commentator on Channel 10 said this morning: Israel needs a Left, a Right, and a Center. Kadima was created for very specific reasons - the populism and myopia of Labor's base, the lunacy and nepotism of Likud's Central Committee - and for very broad reasons - in matters of life and death, the answers become clear and the center usually has them. None of those reasons has passed with Prime Minister Sharon's illness.
Polls trying to evaluate a post-Sharon political world gave Kadima 40 mandates with Olmert, 42 with Peres, and 38 with Livni. We're going to be as gentle as we can be regarding these polls: they're utterly useless. These numbers are quite soft. Something about sympathy for a beloved Prime Minister on his death bed. But analysts last night did make some other astute comments on this question: let's say that an Olmert-led Kadima only gets 32 mandates. That's still wildly enough to win the election. The question, of course, is whether there will be an Olmert-led Kadima by the time the elections roll around. Or a Kadima.
The X-factor right now is Shimon Peres, Israel's most successful electoral #2 and its perennially losing #1. To have a chance in the elections, Olmert has to keep Peres in Kadima at all costs - Labor is already trying to poach Peres back. In Olmert's favor: Peres does not easily forgive betrayal, and Peretz stabbed him in the back in the Labor primaries by running against him and beating him. In Peretz's favor: Kadima may fall apart, and Peres is nothing if not politically shrewd enough to get out early. Whoever gets Peres will get the minimum 5-6 mandates that come with him - and will decide whether Kadima looks like they're holding together or falling apart.
Labor
In the last 24 hours, the text of Shimon Peres's original explanation for leaving the Labor party has been parsed and analyzed to levels worthy of biblical exegesis. He originally said that he was leaving for Kadima because (and this is crucial) he believed that Sharon was the only person capable of bringing peace to Israel. Now that Prime Minster Sharon is incapacitated, he is arguably the most important political prize in Israel.
With Labor's chances dramatically improved, moreover, politicians who choose to sit this election out might come back. Specifically, Ehud Barak might return to vie for the Defense Ministry. The decision he faces is pure game theory: if he comes back early, he might secure a promise from Peretz for making him Defense Minister - but if no one follows back and Labor loses anyway, then he looks like an idiot. If he waits to see if other people are returning to Labor and only joins when it's safe, he could get beaten to the spoils.
Likud
As we argued yesterday, contrary to popular wisdom, the political beneficiary of Kadima's decline is the Likud. And we're kind of inflating our egos unfairly - in the last 24 hours even the conventional wisdom has flipped, and suddenly there's talk of a Prime Minister Netanyahu. And now things get a little weird, because the Likud - which is still in the government - has an incentive to push that very government toward the Left. That would typecast Olmert as a Leftist and set up the Likud as the real rightist party in Israel - but then they would be a rightist party that had pushed a government to the left.
Netanyahu has a much harder job winning back Likud MKs than Peretz has winning back Labor MKs, because those Likud MKs left because of disgust with the party itself. But Netanyahu has an advantage that Peretz does not: many of the Likudniks that he's wooing (Mofaz being the most prominent example) don't really have much of a home or many prospects for success in Kadima. That is, unless Olmert gets to them first and promises them success. So nothing has really changed from yesterday: Olmert's will succeed largely to the extent to which he acts quickly (barring, of course, a dramatic decision by Peres to return to Labor, which would take almost all of the momentum out of Kadima’s sails).
If the prime minister is prevented from filling his post, the government will be authorized to elect one of its members, who is also a member of the PM's faction, to replace him in office.
This article is a little vague - the Cabinet chooses who will run the country, and there are three restrictions on who that person can be. The person has to be a member of the PM's own faction, a Member of the Knesset, and a government minister. So for instance, Shaul Mofaz isn't eligible - he is a member of Kadima and he's a minister, but he's not an MK. Peres isn't eligible either - although he's a minister and an MK, he's not a member of Kadima. Tzachi Hanegbi also isn't really eligible, but that's probably because he's a shameless criminal who had to resign from the Knesset. That's not really relevant, but it's fun to repeat.
This Ha'aretz article does a slightly better job mapping out the various options and challenges facing the government:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is currently defined as temporarily incapacitated, but should this definition change to permanently incapacitated, the cabinet will have to meet immediately to choose an acting premier. Attorney General Menachem Mazuz said this during a special cabinet session called Thursday to discuss the legal implications of Sharon's condition... In this case, the possible candidates would be Olmert, Tzipi Livni, Meir Sheetrit, Gideon Ezra and Abraham Hirchson. The other two Kadima ministers, Shaul Mofaz and Tzachi Hanegbi, are not MKs...
If Sharon is declared permanently incapacitated, the Kadima ministers will presumably decide among themselves who should become acting premier and use their cabinet majority to get their choice elected. However, if they cannot agree, the four Likud ministers - who have postponed their planned cabinet resignation in light of Sharon's illness - could wind up casting the decisive votes. That would create a bizarre situation - the acting premier, who would also presumably be Kadima's prime ministerial candidate in the elections, would effectively have been chosen by a rival party.
The other important opinion that Attorney General Mofaz gave during the cabinet meeting was that elections absolutely will can and legally can not be postponed. So Israel will choose a new Prime Minster on March 28, for better or worse. There is nothing that can derail the election short of a legal finding that war has made voting impossible. We know you've heard differently today. Please disregard that. It is incorrect. We promise.
Kadima
The Ha'aretz article linked to above ends with the following paragraph:
[Mier] Sheetrit [a Kadima MK]… hastened to make his preference known: "In my belief, Olmert can lead Kadima in the elections and establish the next government," he said
This seems weird to us, since everyone else (including most of Ha'aretz's political experts) interpreted Sheetrit's call as a direct challenge to Olmert for the leadership of Kadima. One political junkie, unable to conceal his joy at having a close election and a relevant life, went so far as to say that Sheetrit was asking the right question - although "perhaps" he "ran a little too fast". Watching Sheetrit make that challenge on Channel 10 was kind of absurd. All the commentators went nuts as soon as he said that the party leadership has to be decided ASAP (because it was obvious that he was challenging Olmert) - then he immediately backed off and said that it was inappropriate to discuss politics while Sharon's health was in question. Then he repeated his challenge again. And backed off again. On that very program, Roni Bar-On (who's quoted in the Ha'aretz article that correctly describes Sheetrit's comments as a challenge to Olmert) threw his support behind Olmert. But that won't be enough - very soon, Olmert is going to have a leadership battle on his hands. It's impossible to know the contours of that battle until more people show their cards.
We believe that predictions of Kadima's demise have been exaggerated. Political scientists and observers of the highest caliber are declaring that Sharon was the only glue holding Kadima together - but it bears noticing that most of them have been skeptical about Kadima from the beginning (Daniel Pipes, Daniel Drezner). Not that they're necessarily wrong - just a little too quick. In fact we - with our perhaps exaggerated idea of Sharon's power and relevance - might at first be inclined to agree with them. But for the fact that we simply can't figure out where all those political superstars in Kadima are going to go. Labor is already stacked with Peretz's sycophants. The Likud is still dominated by the Central Committee and by Netanyahu - neither famous for their magnanimousness in victory. Even if Kadima MKs wanted to jump off the Kadima ship, they're not going to do it if jumping overboard means they'll drown.
The next few days will be critical, but as one commentator on Channel 10 said this morning: Israel needs a Left, a Right, and a Center. Kadima was created for very specific reasons - the populism and myopia of Labor's base, the lunacy and nepotism of Likud's Central Committee - and for very broad reasons - in matters of life and death, the answers become clear and the center usually has them. None of those reasons has passed with Prime Minister Sharon's illness.
Polls trying to evaluate a post-Sharon political world gave Kadima 40 mandates with Olmert, 42 with Peres, and 38 with Livni. We're going to be as gentle as we can be regarding these polls: they're utterly useless. These numbers are quite soft. Something about sympathy for a beloved Prime Minister on his death bed. But analysts last night did make some other astute comments on this question: let's say that an Olmert-led Kadima only gets 32 mandates. That's still wildly enough to win the election. The question, of course, is whether there will be an Olmert-led Kadima by the time the elections roll around. Or a Kadima.
The X-factor right now is Shimon Peres, Israel's most successful electoral #2 and its perennially losing #1. To have a chance in the elections, Olmert has to keep Peres in Kadima at all costs - Labor is already trying to poach Peres back. In Olmert's favor: Peres does not easily forgive betrayal, and Peretz stabbed him in the back in the Labor primaries by running against him and beating him. In Peretz's favor: Kadima may fall apart, and Peres is nothing if not politically shrewd enough to get out early. Whoever gets Peres will get the minimum 5-6 mandates that come with him - and will decide whether Kadima looks like they're holding together or falling apart.
Labor
In the last 24 hours, the text of Shimon Peres's original explanation for leaving the Labor party has been parsed and analyzed to levels worthy of biblical exegesis. He originally said that he was leaving for Kadima because (and this is crucial) he believed that Sharon was the only person capable of bringing peace to Israel. Now that Prime Minster Sharon is incapacitated, he is arguably the most important political prize in Israel.
With Labor's chances dramatically improved, moreover, politicians who choose to sit this election out might come back. Specifically, Ehud Barak might return to vie for the Defense Ministry. The decision he faces is pure game theory: if he comes back early, he might secure a promise from Peretz for making him Defense Minister - but if no one follows back and Labor loses anyway, then he looks like an idiot. If he waits to see if other people are returning to Labor and only joins when it's safe, he could get beaten to the spoils.
Likud
As we argued yesterday, contrary to popular wisdom, the political beneficiary of Kadima's decline is the Likud. And we're kind of inflating our egos unfairly - in the last 24 hours even the conventional wisdom has flipped, and suddenly there's talk of a Prime Minister Netanyahu. And now things get a little weird, because the Likud - which is still in the government - has an incentive to push that very government toward the Left. That would typecast Olmert as a Leftist and set up the Likud as the real rightist party in Israel - but then they would be a rightist party that had pushed a government to the left.
Netanyahu has a much harder job winning back Likud MKs than Peretz has winning back Labor MKs, because those Likud MKs left because of disgust with the party itself. But Netanyahu has an advantage that Peretz does not: many of the Likudniks that he's wooing (Mofaz being the most prominent example) don't really have much of a home or many prospects for success in Kadima. That is, unless Olmert gets to them first and promises them success. So nothing has really changed from yesterday: Olmert's will succeed largely to the extent to which he acts quickly (barring, of course, a dramatic decision by Peres to return to Labor, which would take almost all of the momentum out of Kadima’s sails).
