Minister Haim Ramon quits Labor to join Sharon

Minister Haim Ramon announced Wednesday that he is quitting the Labor Party to join Ariel Sharon’s new National Responsibility party. Ramon, a lifelong member of Labor and once one of its main doves, was a strong supporter of the concept of the political „big bang,” in which members of the Labor, Likud and Shinui parties would form a broad centrist party. Ramon had held talks on the creation of a new centrist party over the past year with Sharon’s son, MK Omri Sharon. „I am joining Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s party, whose name National Responsibility … truly reflects the substance of the new party,” Ramon told a news conference Wednesday. The new party can bring „security, co-existence, social justice,” Ramon said. „I am calling for truly stepping up for what one is today, and not what one was at one time.” The election of Amir Peretz as chairman of the Labor Party also hastened Ramon’s departure, after the latter strongly supported the candidacy of Shimon Peres in the party’s primaries. On Tuesday, Sharon chalked up one new member, when MK David Tal agreed to join. Tal entered the Knesset two terms ago as a Shas MK, then quit that party and ran in the last elections on Amir Peretz’s One Nation list. He then split from One Nation when it voted to merge with Labor, and has since been functioning as an independent. BPI-info