After just one year and three months since his second
government was set up Sharon has arrived at the same juncture
Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak encountered while serving
as prime minister: a coalition minority which makes him
dependent on the kindness of others. Sharon's current
campaign is just to reach the summer recess in decent
shape.
It took Netanyahu two years to reach this situation, Barak
one and a half. Sharon even less. This is to be expected when
one assembles a shatnez government that has no chance
of long-term survival from the outset. Sharon is left with a
coalition of just 59 MKs and he now has to rely on the Labor
Party's munificence.
Sharon and the coalition heads have become day traders. They
cannot engage in long-term planning or forward thinking.
Their main goal is survival and each days brings new
challenges to their survival in plenary sessions and even
more in the committees, where their majority has shrunk at
times to just one vote. A coalition like this requires
harmony, a good attendance rate and hard work. Ministers will
have to spend more time in the Knesset and MKs will not be
able to travel abroad or be absent for no good reason.
Sharon's survival plan is built on buying time until the
summer recess, which is still over a month and a half away.
That's a long time, but doable. The Labor Party committed to
provide him a safety net until then. The Sharon government is
not about to fall because the Knesset does not have 61 MKs to
rise up with a no-confidence vote. The MKs don't have the
strength for elections.
Sharon's problem is day-to-day affairs--passing government
bills or government-supported bills and defeating the
opposition's bills. The Labor Party's safety net only
provides protection in the area of policy and no-confidence
motions. In other daily Knesset affairs, particularly in the
socioeconomic realm, Labor will remain the opposition and
even a fighting opposition.
Labor Heading for the Coalition
During the next three and a half months--one and a half
months until the recess and then the two months of the summer
recess--Sharon hopes to put together a new coalition. There
are plenty of possibilities, but none of them are easy.
Sharon's working assumption is that the NRP will not last for
more than two or three more months, despite the quantity of
glue on the seat of Zevulun Orlev's pants, because his MKs
will be unable to withstand the pressure applied to them by
the settlers and the mini-kippah crowd--particularly once
legislation on evacuating settlements comes to the
Knesset.
Therefore Sharon's first move will be to try to bring the
Labor Party into the coalition. As far as Labor is concerned
this is already a done deal, but for the Likud it is no
simple matter. Between one-fourth and one-half of Likud MKs
would not support such a move.
Opponents claim bringing in Labor would put the party back on
center-stage politically. With Labor and Shinui the new
government would have a left-wing contingent with nearly as
much power as the Likud. The opponents also argue Labor would
then determine the coalition's future and it would have the
power to decide when the government would come to an end.
(This argument appears weak since even today if Labor decides
to remove its safety net the government would quickly reach
the end of its rope.)
To make it easier for Likud members to come to terms with
having the Labor Party in the government Sharon intends to
try to recruit UTJ. Sharon's staff has already begun courting
UTJ and mending its relations with the party. But it seems
highly unlikely such a move would succeed, both because of
Shinui and even more because of UTJ. The combination would be
difficult or impossible, especially after what the chareidi
public has gone through in the last year courtesy of
Shinui.
