MIDDLE EAST: The new leader of Israel's Labour Party, Amir Peretz, yesterday said he intended to force a general election next spring after pulling his party out of Ariel Sharon's government.
Mr Peretz will meet Mr Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, on Thursday to formalise Labour's withdrawal as the junior partner in the Likud-led coalition administration. The Labour leader originally said the meeting would be tomorrow but the prime minister's aides pushed it back.
An election must be held by November 2006 but Mr Peretz said he wished to bring it forward to March or shortly afterwards.
"I'll tell him we want to part ways in a dignified manner," Mr Peretz told the press. "We want to be independent, and want the Labour Party to renew its ability to serve as an alternative."
Opinion polls in yesterday's Israeli press showed Mr Peretz's dramatic political upset in toppling Shimon Peres as Labour leader has significantly improved the party's election prospects, but not by enough to unseat Mr Sharon.
Mr Peres, the deputy prime minister and a Nobel peace prize winner, finally congratulated Mr Peretz yesterday after his silence was widely interpreted as bad grace. Mr Peretz, who is also leader of Israel's trades union confederation, said he was willing to offer Mr Peres the post of deputy.
One prominent left-wing former cabinet minister, Yossi Sarid, described Mr Peretz's victory as a "revolution" because of his rejection of Mr Sharon's policies towards the Palestinians and his pledge to take his party back to its socialist roots.
Mr Peretz could complicate Mr Sharon's rejection of negotiations with the Palestinians and his programme to unilaterally impose Israel's permanent borders.