Livni adds to pressure on Olmert to stand down

The political turmoil in Israel over Ehud Olmert's premiership intensified yesterday when his popular Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said the ruling Kadima party should prepare for elections and stressed the desirability of a leadership contest.

Ms Livni's public exhortation to Kadima "to prepare for every eventuality" was aimed at increasing the pressure on Mr Olmert to step aside in the wake of allegations by the US businessman Morris Talansky that he had provided the Israeli Prime Minister with about $150,000 (£75,000) over 15 years. The Foreign Minister said that "the reality" had changed after Wednesday when the Defence Minister and Labour party leader Ehud Barak threatened to force a general election by walking out of Mr Olmert's coalition unless he stood aside.

During a discussion with Israeli journalists in which Ms Livni delicately avoided mentioning the embattled Prime Minister by name, she declared: "I am a big believer in primaries, and believe that we need to involve the public in choosing its leadership, thereby bringing back trust in Kadima."

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Ms Livni also strongly, if obliquely, dismissed the defence of Mr Olmert – whom Mr Talansky said he had supplied with cash for luxury hotel stays in the US and a family holiday in Italy – that he had acted questionably but not illegally. "The issue isn't only legal," she said. "It infuriates me, the attempt to claim that it is a matter of norms that everyone who enters politics needs to adopt. It's not true... and I am... against the attempt to impose improper norms on politics."

Ms Livni insisted that "we must be leaders, not led" and that it was "impossible to do nothing" while Mr Barak threatened early elections. But it was still not clear whether the pointed words of either minister were yet enough to force Mr Olmert, a skilled and determined political street-fighter, to step down – or "suspend himself" pending the police investigation against him.

Mr Olmert, whose lawyers will have the chance to cross-examine Mr Talansky in July, has told allies he intends to prove his innocence and has officially only said he will resign if he is indicted. He may also gamble that Mr Barak will be reluctant to implement his threat because the polls indicate he would lose a general election contest to Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud party.

Ms Livni's reference to "involving the public" in the issue of Kadima's leadership may be significant. While the polls indicate she is easily the most nationally electable Kadima politician, at least one rival, the right-wing Shaul Mofaz, is thought to have a stronger base among activists. There has even been some media speculation that in return for Mr Mofaz's help in blocking a coup within Kadima now, Mr Olmert would promise to "deliver" his supporters to Mr Mofaz if he was forced to go later.

Gideon Saar, a leading Likud parliamentarian, compared Mr Barak's threat – which did not have an explicit deadline – with Ms Livni's own "unimpressive performance" earlier this year when she called on Mr Olmert to resign after he was heavily criticised in the Winograd report on the Lebanon war. Ms Livni did not resign herself when Mr Olmert ignored the call.

But Mr Barak sought to reinforce Ms Livni's remarks and his own threat yesterday by predicting elections this year and adding: "The lot has fallen, we must prepare for elections. The Prime Minister must make decisions, and if he doesn't make them, we'll do it for him."

Meanwhile Eli Yishai, the cabinet minister who leads the ultra-orthodox Shas party, said an "elections dynamic" was beginning and claimed that his was the only party with nothing to fear from elections. Shas's defection from the coalition would deprive Mr Olmert of his Knesset majority unless he could find a replacement.