By AFP,
Jerusalem : The head of Israel’s governing party, Tzipi Livni, is likely to recommend early elections on Sunday after ending efforts to form a coalition government, Israeli public radio reported.
Sources close to Livni told Israeli radio Saturday that she would propose snap elections to President Shimon Peres, and that the vote could be held in the next four months.
Livni, leader of the Kadima party and currently foreign minister, warned on Thursday that if she was unable to form a coalition government by a Sunday deadline, snap elections would be called.
She had gathered her inner circle on Saturday night for last-minute talks before announcing her decision. “She took the correct decision,” Kadima party member and lawmaker Yoel Hasson told journalists, without confirming the radio report. Livni is expected to meet Peres at 1500 GMT to inform him on efforts to form a government.
The chances of forming a government were reduced after a powerful ultra-Orthodox party said it would not join a coalition headed by prime minister designate Livni.
Major differences emerged in talks with Shas, the third largest party with 12 deputies, whose support was seen as vital in forming a viable government.
On Friday, Shas said it had failed to secure two key requirements — increased family allowances and a guarantee that the future of occupied east Jerusalem would not be negotiated in peace talks with the Palestinians.
Peres asked Livni on September 22 to form a new government after she was elected Kadima leader to replace Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has resigned to battle a wave of graft allegations. Livni, a 51-year-old former Mossad agent, is seeking to become Israel’s second woman prime minister after Golda Meir, who held office from 1969 to 1974.
However, should general elections be scheduled for 2009, polls have indicated they could bring Likud and former premier Benjamin Netanyahu to power.
An early general election could also cast a long shadow over already sluggish Middle East peacemaking.
As foreign minister, Livni has led US-backed negotiations with the Palestinians that were revived at a US conference last November but have made little progress since.
On Thursday, Netanyahu accused Livni of wanting to divide Jerusalem, whose fate is one of the thorniest issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinians have demanded mostly Arab east Jerusalem — seized and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Six Day war in a move not recognised internationally — as the capital of their future state.
Israel considers the entire city its “eternal, undivided” capital, although Olmert last month said that Israel would have to give up almost the entire occupied West Bank including east Jerusalem as the price for peace.