Israel sets March election, Sharon heads polls

JERUSALEM - Israeli officials have set an early parliamentary election for March 28, a day after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rocked the nation's political system by quitting his rightist Likud to found a centrist party.

Lawmakers will put the final touches to a motion to dissolve parliament and hold early elections and will approve it in three separate votes today, a parliamentary official said.

The election had been scheduled for November 2006, but President Moshe Katsav struck a deal with the parliament speaker and attorney general on Tuesday to bring it forward because of the crisis triggered by Sharon's political thunderbolt.

In a move that could reshape Israeli politics for years to come, Sharon quit the party he co-founded three decades ago, saying he could not push for peace with the Palestinians while "wasting time" battling far-right rivals in Likud.

Opinion polls showed the biggest gamble of Sharon's long political career could pay off, giving his new - and so far unnamed - party 30-33 seats in the 120-member parliament, enough to virtually assure him a third term.

Polls in three newspapers - Yedioth Ahronoth, Haaretz and Maariv - put Likud a distant third, with 12 to 15 seats, behind the centre-left Labour party under its fiery new leader, Amir Peretz, with 25 to 26 seats.

But the initial enthusiasm for Sharon's breakaway could cool, according to a commentary accompanying the Haaretz poll.

New parties have historically fared poorly in Israel, and Sharon faces stiff opposition from the frontrunner to succeed him as Likud leader, hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu.

Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom also plan to stand in a Likud primary in mid-December.

Sharon hopes to draw voters from the Likud, Labour and centrist Shinui parties, tapping into popular support for the Gaza pullout completed in September and his tough military response to the Palestinian uprising that began in 2000.

In the West Bank town of Jericho, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie said that while political change in Israel was an internal affair, he hoped for "an Israeli government interested in pursuing a peace process within a limited timeframe".

The majority of Israelis, Qurie said, wanted peace.

At a news conference on Monday, Sharon reiterated his demand that the Palestinian Authority disarm gunmen before talks on statehood can resume - part of a US-backed peace "road map" whose terms both sides have failed to fulfil.

Sharon, a 77-year-old ex-general popularly known as "the Bulldozer", also ruled out further unilateral Israeli withdrawals from occupied land.

The Palestinians fear his vow to hold on to major West Bank settlement blocs would deny them a viable state.

But he said Israelis must also assume that some settlements would not remain as part of a treaty with the Palestinians, an apparent reference to isolated enclaves.

Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is joining Sharon's new party, told Army Radio: "We are talking about a desire to define the permanent borders of Israel in the framework of an agreement (with the Palestinians) based on the road map." Sharon's new party has already been joined by a dozen Likud veterans, and confidants said he may also recruit members from among ex-security chiefs, moderate religious Zionists and academia.

Many in the Likud saw the Gaza pullout as a surrender to violence, while foreign peace mediators hailed it as an opportunity to kick-start talks with the Palestinians.

- REUTERS