Ariel Sharon, 72, whose name is associated with some of the bloodiest chapters of Israeli history, was elected prime minister in a crushing landslide Tuesday with a promise to drastically change the way Israel pursues peace, and guarantee the Israelis the security they have been keen on achieving.
Sharon was elected prime minister of Israel, coming in more than 25 percentage points ahead of outgoing Labor premier Ehud Barak, electoral authorities said Wednesday according to Israeli radio.
With more than 99 percent of the votes counted, Sharon had received about 62.5 percent of the vote, while Barak got only 37.4 percent, the radio said.
Votes of the military had yet to be counted, but would not make any serious impact on the result, said AFP.
Sharon's defeat of Ehud Barak was absolute: Just 20 months after his own lopsided victory in a prime minister's race, Barak stunned even his closest advisors late Tuesday by announcing his resignation as head of the Labor Party. He also relinquished his seat in parliament.
According to the Los Angeles Times, it was a breathtaking reversal of the Israeli political scene that gives power to the hard-line right wing and hurls the troubled Middle East peace process deeper into an abyss of uncertainty. Israelis voted out of anger and fear, bereft of hope and traumatized by the worst Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed in years.
After the unofficial results were released, the Prime Minister-elect promised "a new path of peace and unity at home" and declaring that a "people cannot exist without national cohesion," he called on the Labor Party to join his government, according to Haaretz.
Standing at the Tel Aviv Exhibition Grounds flanked by the entire Likud faction, as well as the leadership of the political right, Sharon called for "a new page in relations with Israel's Arabs ... to create a sense of real partnership with them."
He said "true peace requires painful concessions on both sides" and went on to promise that he would never divide Jerusalem, nor forget it, quoting from Psalms, "If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget it's cunning."
Saying "in recent years divisions have deepened" in Israel society "with all of us suffering from hatred," Sharon said "the time has come to reach agreement among us. The public wants unity."
Throughout his speech, his supporters in the audience sometimes began chanting "the Temple Mount is in our hands."
To shouts of "Don't go" from Labor Party activists at the party's election night headquarters in Shfayim, near Tel Aviv, Barak said his government's policy had been right, but had "come before its time.... Perhaps our public is not mature enough to face up to the painful truths that we laid out before it. Perhaps the Palestinians are not mature enough either, and resorted to the barren solution of violence."
Barak's bombshell resignation came toward the end of his concession speech and took most of the audience by surprise. Earlier, he suggested that Labor not turn down Ariel Sharon's proposal for a unity government, but rather examine whether it might be possible to devise a joint policy platform with the Likud on the key issues of the peace process, defense policy and economic and social policy. If not, Labor would be a "fighting opposition," Barak pledged, striving to unseat Sharon's government "at the earliest possible moment."
Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, who clearly implied that he would run for the vacant Labor leadership, said the party's first order of business should be to install a "collective leadership," which must include elder statesman Shimon Peres, which would decide "whether or not to take up the unity option."
Burg said Barak's decision was "courageous and responsible." He said he did not want "to talk about my own plans and ambitions at this time."
Barak and the Labor party received a resounding blow from the Israeli Arab public Tuesday, with its sweeping boycott of the prime ministerial elections.
"We proved today that we are not in anyone's pocket," said MK Abdulmalik Dehamshe of the United Arab List told Haaretz. He defined the boycotting of the elections as the "electoral declaration of independence" of Israel's Arabs. Ehud Barak's total collapse in the Arab sector was apparent already in the morning hours, when hundreds of polling stations in Arab towns remained empty for hours. The trend was made even clearer in the early hours of the evening, when workers returned home but the voting rate did not significantly change.
According to The Jerusalem Post, there were no surprised faces at Meretz headquarters as the election results were announced, just disappointed and, in a few cases, scared ones.
As rumors of a 20 percent landslide filtered into the conference room where several dozen Meretz activists and a handful of MKs gathered to watch the results, one activist declared, "It's a disaster for the Left."
"I expected this. I trust the surveys," MK Anat Maor said, before going on to cite a survey that found that a majority of the public wants to continue the peace process.
Speaking on Israeli Channel One television, former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reacted to the projected election results saying that Sharon's apparent victory in the prime ministerial election sends a clear message to the Palestinian leadership that the Israeli public wants a change from the current status quo. He added that Israelis desire a "real peace." -- Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
