Less than 24 hours after promising to strive for unity among party ranks, newly-elected Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday vowed to „clear out the negative and criminal elements” which have penetrated Likud. Netanyahu is expected to decide in the coming days on a series of administrative measures aimed at removing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s cronies within the Likud apparatus. Netanyahu associates have accused these activists of assisting Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom during his campaign in the run-up for the primaries. Netanyahu associates said he will also vie to extract associates of far-rightist Moshe Feiglin, who came in third in the primaries, to the dismay of several prominent Likud figures who have in recent days branded Feiglin as a foreign body in the party. In the meanwhile, Education Minister Limor Livnat on Tuesday was set to move to thwart Netanyahu’s stated intention to pull the Likud from the government. Netanyahu’s convincing victory in the Likud primary Monday sharply shifted the focus within the party to the direction the new Likud will take, and whether Netanyahu will carry through on his vow to pull all Likud ministers out of the cabinet the Kadima-led government of Ariel Sharon. Netanyahu is on record as favoring a swift, blanket resignation of all Likud ministers from the cabinet. But Kadima fchair Roni Bar-On, a former Likud kingmaker, said Tuesday that the ministers in question – Livnat, Foreign Minister Shalom, Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz, and Health Minister Dan Naveh, might resist a bid to compel them to resign. „If Bibi [Netanyahu] thinks that tomorrow morning they will all snap to attention when he tells them something, I assume that there’s a surprise waiting for him,” Kadima fchair Roni Bar-On told Israel Radio on Tuesday morning, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname. „I heard Limor Livnat speaking yesterday, She doesn’t truly ‘count’ Bibi [grant much importance to what he says or orders]. She is in no hurry to leave the government.” Bar-On hinted that Naveh and Shalom were also not keen to leave their positions. Livnat will ask that the Likud Central Committee be convened to decide on the matter. She intends to collect the signatures of committee members and present them to Naveh, interim chief of the Central Committee. Naveh is also said to oppose a Likud exit from the government. The dischord came immediately after Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom’s call for unity within the party. In his concession speech in Tel Aviv last night, after losing the leadership primary to Netanyahu, Shalom said he thinks „the people that supported me want to see the ideas I supported presented in the Likud that begins today [under Netanyahu]. „I told Netanyahu that I think that we need to work together to maintain one big Likud going into the general elections,” Shalom continued, using the name of the party which also means „unification” in Hebrew.
BPI-info
BPI-info
