They said senior Shas leaders implied the party has no reason to lower the level of its demands, because Opposition leader and Likud party chairman Binyamin Netanyahu promised them increasing child allowance supplements.
Kadima's coalition negotiating team met with Meretz, senior citizens' Pensioners, and hareidi-religious United Torah Judaism parties on Wednesday.
There has been no progress in bringing the Sephardic religious Shas party into the coalition, said aides to Prime Minister-designate Tzipi Livni. They explained that senior Shas leaders implied the party has no reason to lower the level of its demands because Opposition leader and Likud party chairman Binyamin Netanyahu promised them increasing child allowance supplements. Netanyahu has denied it.
Pensioners
Without Shas, Livni's coalition would be extremely narrow. The Pensioners party would likely not join, the party's Health Minister, Yaakov Ben Yizri, told Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Shas chairman Eli Yishai, who was also present at a meeting with the rabbi and minister, said that five Kadima MKs would vote against a narrow coalition led by Livni.
The Pensioners were also not pleased with Kadima's response to their new team of coalition negotiators. The Kadima party Wednesday morning responded sarcastically to the party's appointment of a negotiating team at this late date, with aides telling listeners on IDF Army Radio, "they [the Pensioners party members] apparently fell on their heads."
"There is no doubt that her old age embarrasses her youth."
Pensioners chairman Yitzchak Galanti explained why the party only now set up a negotiating team, saying, "If Tzipi Livni does want to go with any government at all, only the support of Gil [the Pensioners party]... is what would bring her to a wider national consensus, a lot more than Shas."
Inside Kadima
Within her own Kadima party, the "Shaul Mofaz camp" also expressed opposition, with Mofaz supporter MK Otniel Shneller telling IDF Army Radio Wednesday morning that if the coalition is narrow, the future of Kadima would be uncertain. Shneller noted, "Most of the members of Kadima want to stay in Kadima, and don't want to join, not with Meretz, which backs the Geneva Inititiave that calls for Israel's giving away almost all of eastern Jerusalem and Judeay and Samaria. "Therefore, I don't assess that Kadima members would support a government that would represent" the Geneva plan, he added.
Livni also met with Mofaz Wednesday in an ongoing effort to secure his support after winning the Kadima leadership election by a scant one-percent margin.
Aloni: Would Livni Lead?
Former Meretz chairwoman Shulamit Aloni, Wednesday morning, slammed Labor party chairman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, calling him him "the most dangerous man in Israel." Aloni claimed that Barak expresses positions further right than Likud party chairman Binyamin Netanyahu. Barak demanded in coalition talks that Livni grant him "most senior minister" status in any government she forms.
"The government that will rise now, in which Tzipi [Livni] will have to cope with Ehud Barak, who is, in my opinion, the most dangerous man today in the state, in addition to Mofaz… In actuality what he [Barak] tried to dictate was that she will be prime minister de-jure [official] and he will be prime minister de facto. That's what he tried to dictate," commented Aloni.
Defense Minister Barak's spokesman Ronen Moshe responded to the criticism by calling Aloni's comments, "delusional" or "delirious."
Moshe said "there is no doubt that her old age embarrasses her youth."
If Livni fails to form a government in the next 13 days, President Peres will either be forced to hand the task to someone else or call a general election. Polls have repeatedly predicted that a general election would leave Kadima weaker and Likud stronger.