This time, he’s not going to manage to stay in office. Ehud Barak is calling on Olmert to step down.
“The prime minister must detach himself from the daily management of the government. He can do so in a variety of ways: Suspension, vacation, resignation or leave of absence. This will not be determined by us,” Barak said.
Maybe then Israel will think about revising its parliamentary system, which protects incompetents and corrupt politicians who know how to play the game. Really. Imagine if Bill Clinton’s sin wasn’t having sex with an intern and then lying about it. Imagine if he took half a million dollars in cash bribes. He’d be gone in an instant. But this is at least the beginning of the fraying of the coalition keeping one of the weakest, most corrupt, least accountable Prime Ministers in Israel’s history in office. The man didn’t have the courage to take the blame for the failures of the Second Lebanon War. He blamed his generals instead.
The defense minister noted that “Olmert cannot deal with the challenges Israel faces, like Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria, Iran and the kidnapped soldiers, and run his personal affairs at the same time.”
He added that “the Labor Party will not hold a stopwatch in Kadima’s face, but things have to happen as soon as possible… The State deserves stability, and therefore we must have a government in the Knesset. I am not afraid of elections. The public will decide and we will win.”
[...] A source in the Labor faction told Ynet following Barak’s press conference that if a new government is not formed within two months, his party will work towards pushing up the elections.
The source said that the timetable Barak intends to work by is limited by the current Knesset term.
I’m sure Ehud Barak thinks he’s going to be PM again. Tzipi Livni thinks the job is hers, especially after the poll saying that Kadima would take the election. But I think Israel is going to go Likud. There are too many rockets pointed at Israel, from too many directions.
Besides, it would be the biggest slap in the face to Israel’s critics. They call all Israelis who are interested in self-defense Likudniks. May as well make them right about it, for a change.