With that decision made just this afternoon, Mr. Sharon will address the Likud party's national convention tonight. A proposed vote among all Likud members will take many weeks to arrange, during which Sharon is scheduled to meet with US President Bush in Washington.
As of this afternoon, the convention looked to be a quiet, formalized event, rather than the lively exercise in democracy the Israeli public has come to expect from Likud party gatherings. The only speakers to address the convention will be Prime Minister Sharon and Likud convention president Minister of Agriculture Yisrael Katz. Advance information from those close to Sharon indicate that the Prime Minister does not plan to include his controversial unilateral Gaza disengagement plan in his address, nor does he plan to mention the possible criminal indictment against him. According to aides to the prime minister, Mr. Sharon will keep it simple and superficial, wishing the party's leadership assembly a happy Passover holiday.
But not all is quiet in the Likud party. Chairman of the Knesset Law Committee and Likud Knesset Member Michael Eitan told Israel Radio today that Likud institutions have been taken over by the Sharon family.
"The convention will be more suitable to a totalitarian regime, to a dictatorship," MK Eitan charged.
According to Eitan, voices that are critical of Mr. Sharon are shut out of centers of control, while true control is exercised directly and indirectly by the Sharon family, including through Sharon supporters Yisrael Katz and Uri Shani.
Responding to the charges leveled by MK Eitan, Likud MK Eli Aflalo said, "No way." The convention, he explained, is mostly a formality at this point, with one of the main issues an internal procedure to select a national elections committee.
As of this afternoon, the convention looked to be a quiet, formalized event, rather than the lively exercise in democracy the Israeli public has come to expect from Likud party gatherings. The only speakers to address the convention will be Prime Minister Sharon and Likud convention president Minister of Agriculture Yisrael Katz. Advance information from those close to Sharon indicate that the Prime Minister does not plan to include his controversial unilateral Gaza disengagement plan in his address, nor does he plan to mention the possible criminal indictment against him. According to aides to the prime minister, Mr. Sharon will keep it simple and superficial, wishing the party's leadership assembly a happy Passover holiday.
But not all is quiet in the Likud party. Chairman of the Knesset Law Committee and Likud Knesset Member Michael Eitan told Israel Radio today that Likud institutions have been taken over by the Sharon family.
"The convention will be more suitable to a totalitarian regime, to a dictatorship," MK Eitan charged.
According to Eitan, voices that are critical of Mr. Sharon are shut out of centers of control, while true control is exercised directly and indirectly by the Sharon family, including through Sharon supporters Yisrael Katz and Uri Shani.
Responding to the charges leveled by MK Eitan, Likud MK Eli Aflalo said, "No way." The convention, he explained, is mostly a formality at this point, with one of the main issues an internal procedure to select a national elections committee.