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Shinui leader MK Yosef (Tommy) Lapid is expected to serve as justice minister and deputy prime minister in the new government.
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| By Ellis Shuman February 24, 2003 |
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After intensive overnight negotiations, representatives from the Likud and Shinui parties signed an agreement guaranteeing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with a 61-seat coalition. Shinui will have five government portfolios. Earlier in the evening, Sharon halted the talks fearing that the Likud was being overly generous to Shinui. The ultra-Orthodox parties, cut out of the government, charged the NRP had sold out the Jewish state.
Shinui leader MK Yosef (Tommy) Lapid is expected to serve as justice minister and deputy prime minister in the new government. According to media reports, the other likely Shinui candidates for ministerial positions are:
 Interior Minister - MK Avraham Poraz
National Infrastructure Minister - MK Yosef Paritzky
Environment Minister - MK Yehudith Naot
Science Minister - MK Eliezer Zandberg
According to the coalition agreement, authority for the Communications Ministry, which is being cancelled, will be transferred to the Interior Ministry. Shinui members will also head two Knesset committees and MK Victor Brailovsky is expected to serve as deputy interior minister.
After having signed yesterday with the National Religious Party (six Knesset seats), the addition of the fifteen-member Shinui faction to the Likud's forty members gives Sharon a 61-seat narrow centrist government. But Likud negotiators will meet today with the right-wing National Union party and urge it to join the coalition as well. Sharon hopes to present the new government for Knesset approval this week.
But MK Benny Elon (National Union) said he had "severe moral qualms" about joining a government where the secular Shinui party had control of the justice ministry, which will also have responsibility for the religious courts due to the dismantling of the Religions Ministry.
The agreement between Likud and Shinui was due to be signed late Sunday night, but Sharon instructed Likud's negotiators to return to Jerusalem for additional consultations. Sharon reportedly feared his party was being overly generous to Shinui.
Likud's Knesset members are furious over what they described as a "liquidation sale" of ministry portfolios to Shinui, media sources reported. The Likud politicians are upset that Sharon left only a limited number of portfolios to distribute to their party.
Media analysts charged Shinui had "sold out" on many of its pre-negotiations demands. Before the elections, Shinui leaders had called for a secular coalition with the participation of the Labor Party, which yesterday reiterated its refusal to join a national unity government. Shinui's willingness to join a narrow coalition was made possible after the secular party reached a number of agreements on issues of religion and state with the NRP late last week.
But Poraz told Army Radio that Shinui had achieved a lot in its coalition talks, including the dismantling of the Religions Ministry and the promised cancellation of the Tal Law, which regulates military exemptions for yeshiva students. "We knew we wouldn't be able to get everything we wanted," he said.
Ultra-Orthodox complain of unholy political covenant
Shas leader MK Eli Yishai reacted to Sharon's decision to form a government without the ultra-Orthodox parties by calling it "a black day for Israeli democracy." Yishai said the NRP had sold out the Jewish State by forming a "new testament" with Shinui. "This unholy covenant between the NRP and Shinui will be short-lived," he predicted.
Senior Shas members said, "Sharon cheated us," Yediot Aharonot reported. "He put us to sleep and led us to believe he was going to close a deal with us, and then he stabbed us in the back."
MK Meir Porush (United Torah Judaism) accused Sharon of betraying Orthodox voters. He said he expects Sharon will soon betray right-wing voters as well by forming a Palestinian state, the Jerusalem Post reported.
"The NRP crossed the red line when it decided to cooperate with those who hate the Haredim," charged MK Yisrael Eichler (United Torah Judaism). "I am angry with our naivety for believing that the Likud was an ally."
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