Sharon meets Labour chief, elections loom

JERUSALEM, Thursday (Reuters)

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon meets Israel’s new Labour Party chief on Thursday for talks expected to spell the end of the coalition government and usher in early elections.

Amir Peretz, a trade union leader who ousted Shimon Peres as Labour’s leader in a Nov. 9 party ballot, has vowed to split with Sharon’s ruling right-wing Likud and seek a national poll in March or May. Elections are currently due in November 2006.

“Given the sorry state of the country, in terms of economy, diplomacy and society, bringing forward the vote is a national imperative,” Peretz spokesman Ran Kaminetzky said.

Though Sharon has shrugged off Peretz’s walkout threat, he is unlikely to try to keep together a government which has already lost other coalition partners and is undermined by the rancour of Likud hawks angered at Israel’s Gaza Strip pullout.

“If Peretz wants elections he can get elections,” Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, a Sharon loyalist, told Israel Radio from a technology summit in Tunisia on Wednesday. “March is the right month.” Peretz, 53, shares Peres’ dovish views on Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, but his call to restore social welfare policies and reverse reforms favoured by investors have rattled Israeli markets that only recently pulled out of recession.