Negotiators trying to construct Israel's new government worked into the night to persuade right-wing and religious politicians to accept scraps left over from a deal with the Labour Party.
But factions that are the natural allies of Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon's Likud party appeared reluctant to join a broad coalition to deal with violence from a Palestinian uprising and Middle East peacemaking.
The right-wing National Religious Party, the ultra-Orthodox Shas and the Yisrael B'Aliya immigrants' party vowed yesterday to fill the opposition benches if their demands were not met.
Mr Sharon, who made his first priority cutting a deal with the Labour Party, giving it the defence and foreign ministries, also has to save seats for his own Likud Party.
Labour's central committee votes tomorrow to pick eight legislators who will serve as ministers in Mr Sharon's cabinet. It is widely believed Nobel peace laureate and former Prime Minister Mr Shimon Peres will be foreign minister.
The political struggle is going on as Mr Sharon races to form a government before a late-March deadline and in the face of increasing violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip where a five-month-old Palestinian uprising is raging.
