OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon may have scored a handsome victory in the parliamentary elections, but never has a winner had his hands so tied in forming a coalition. And never has a loser had such power to prevent the formation of a stable government as has Labour Party leader Amram Mitzna, analysts say.

Sharon succeeded in the elections Tuesday in making his Likud party the largest faction in the Knesset (parliament), but the 37 seats it gained are still not enough to allow the premier to dictate the composition of Israel’s next coalition without serious hurdles. Paradoxically, it is Mitzna’s refusal to join a Likud-led government which is determining Sharon’s coalition maneuvers, forcing the premier to choose between other alternatives which analysts say he is less than enthusiastic about.

Sharon’s easiest alternative to unity coalition including Labour is to form a coalition with the right-wing and religious parties. This, however, is understood to be his least favored option. "Sharon doesn’t see himself at the head of a coalition ... that would halt all political progress, push to expel (Palestinian President Yasser) Arafat and keep Israel from getting American loan guarantees," analyst Yossi Verter wrote in the Ha’aretz daily.

Flushed with victory, Sharon Tuesday night told the nation that he wanted to set up a government of national unity. To do so, he would have to persuade Mitzna to go back on his solemn pledge to resist Sharon’s political charms, but whether the Labour leader would do so, even when the alternative is life in the opposition, is a moot question. This would not only alienate those who believed Labour when it said it offered an alternative to Sharon’s policies, but would also likely undermine Mitzna’s position as party leader.

However, with several senior Labour officials believed to hanker after a return to their unity partnership with Sharon, which ended in November just before Mitzna won the party leadership, Mitzna could find himself having to defend his leadership on two opposing fronts.

Sharon too could find that a national unity government brings with it its own political baggage. To entice Labour, he will have to show flexibility as regards his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is likely to lead to friction not only with prospective partners on the right of the political map, but also with his own party, many of whose incoming legislators are even more hawkish than the premier. Joining Sharon in his efforts to form a unity government and overcome Mitzna’s repeated obduracy is the big winner of Tuesday’s election, the anti-clerical Shinui party, which more than doubled its Knesset representation from six to 15 seats.

Shinui leader Tommy Lapid pledged to enter only into a secular unity government, dominated by his party, the Likud and Labour and without the ultra-Orthodox parties.

But Shinui’s determination to be part of the government — Lapid on Wednesday even called on Labour to depose Mitzna if he refused to join a unity coalition — could embroil Sharon in a conflict with his own voters and party. For Shinui to enter a coalition, Sharon would have to ditch the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, whose supporters are ideologically close to the Likud and which has had an informal pact with the ruling party which the premier would be loathe to end.

He may however, have no choice. "In order not to find himself trapped in a narrow right-wing government, which would impose terror and fear throughout the world, from the Middle East to the United States," analyst Hemi Shalev wrote in the Ma’ariv daily, "Sharon will have to clash with his camp, his party and join his adversaries from the center and the left." (DPA)

— Arab News Opinion 30 January 2003