Tzipi Livni will, it seems, most likely become Prime Minister of Israel. A woman with very little experience in government and virtually none in defense, she has landed this job by dint of two strengths: Her personal charisma and her personal connection to Ariel Sharon in the last years of his career. She stood by Sharon when the former Prime Minister formed the centrist Kadima party, and she won the party primary against Shaul Mofaz by a mere 431 votes. Assuming she succeeds in forming a coalition in the next 42 days, she will replace Ehud Olmert.
But before Israel’s political class had a chance to conduct much of a post mortem on a weird and far-too-close primary, word came of a stunning development: Shaul Mofaz, the former defense minister and IDF chief-of-staff, and Kadima’s greatest claim to security-related credentials, announced he was taking a break from politics, quitting not only his job as transportation minister but probably the Knesset as well.
This is a major blow to Livni: If her legitimacy was already limited by the fact that she rose to power by strength of a party whose support has plummeted since the last election, she now has received a slap in the face by the man who represented a large part of her own party. The bargaining power of her coalition partners has just skyrocketed.
No less interesting, however, is the question of what Mofaz is up to. As opposed to most politicians, he is widely seen as not being a classic political animal, being instead a straight-shooter and a man of pride, and there is a chance that his departure is not merely tactical. Be that as it may, there is a good chance that he will be courted not just by Livni, who is likely to offer him a much more important post such as Defense or the Foreign Ministry, but that he will be getting a phone call soon from Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu as well. Since Sharon’s departure, the Likud has lacked a major military figure in its top roster, and there is nothing so natural as Mofaz’shomecoming. No less important is the power that Mofaz wields at the grassroots level: His political organization was widely seen as far superior to Livni’s.
Never dull over here, eh?
