JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Olmert clings to power even after foreign minister Tzipi Livni tells him to go

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert fends off a public call to resign from his foreign minister by winning critical support from party loyalists amid a crisis over his handling of the Lebanon war. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert suffered a potentially final blow to his hopes of staying in power on Wednesday (May 2) when his foreign minister called on him to resign and said she would seek to take over as party leader. Two days after an official inquiry blamed Olmert for serious failures in handling last year's Lebanon war, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Olmert's deputy, said the centrist Kadima party needed new leadership to restore the nation's confidence. "I expressed my opinion during my meeting with the prime minister that I think resignation is the right thing to do," Livni said at a press conference she held at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. But after Livni's news conference, lawmakers from Olmert's Kadima party issued a statement following hours of inrtense debate. "The parliamentary bloc stands behind the government and the prime minister," lawmakers from Olmert's Kadima party said in a statement, declaring him the victor in a showdown with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. The Kadima bloc's parliamentary leader, Avigdor Yitzhaki, resigned during the meeting in protest when Olmert rejected his calls to step down. The fate of Livni, a 48-year-old rising star and deputy leader of Kadima, now hangs in the balance. Under Kadima's rules, Olmert cannot be ousted. The only course of action is to persuade him to resign, officials say. Parliament could force Olmert out through a no-confidence vote but there does not yet appear to be a majority to do so. The government-appointed commission said Olmert had "made up his mind hastily" to launch the campaign against Hezbollah guerrillas last July and accused him of "a serious failure in exercising judgement, responsibility and prudence". His declared aims in going to war -- to free two soldiers seized by Hezbollah and crush the militant group -- were "overly ambitious and impossible to achieve", the commission said in its report on the 34-day conflict. Livni said on Wednesday: "I believe that Kadima needs to stay and lead the state of Israel, Kadima needs to choose its leadership in a democratic manner, in primaries and when the time comes I plan to submit my candidacy, I imagine that there will be others as well but Kadima is a democratic party and it needs to choose a leadership that the public and the party believes in." Kadima Knesset (parliament) member Ruhama Abraham said before the meeting: "What's important is that we show to everyone that first and foremost the Kadima faction is unified, we have to unify this coalition because we face a lot of challenges in face or our enemies outside." Kadima parliament member Marina Solodkin called on the prime minister to resign immediately after the Winograd publication and sought for the rest of the faction to follow. "Conclusions of the report of Winograd are so severe and are so grave that I don't see other way for the prime minister to get out of it in respect and in honour, I do think of course it is his decision but we think I and my friends in parliamentary faction Kadima that he has to go," said Solodkin. The cabinet formed a committee to oversee the implementation of the changes recommended by the commission. Former army chief Dan Halutz stepped down earlier this year, and aides to Defence Minister Amir Peretz told Israel Radio and Army Radio he was considering stepping down. The two frontrunners to replace Olmert are Livni, and Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, 83, a veteran statesman who has been prime minister on two previous occasions.

ITN Source | May 3, 2007

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