Ehud Olmert on the Ropes
After police recommend his indictment, Israel's prime minister clings to power.
The news this week that police recommended indicting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on a number of charges that include fraud, breach of trust and bribe-taking came as no surprise to Israelis. In fact, it was leaked to the press two days in advance — just as the entire case, including dozens of pages of police interrogation transcripts, was leaked to the media over the past several months.
Now it is a waiting game — Attorney General Meni Mazuz must decide whether or not to accept the recommendation of the police.
Meanwhile, Olmert is doing his best to show a brave face and conduct business as usual — seemingly unfazed by the fact that he is a lame-duck prime minister who long ago lost the public’s trust. As Maariv columnist Ofer Shelach put it in an August 7 editorial (Hebrew link), Olmert has no mandate to govern. This fact will prevent him from achieving anything in terms of diplomatic relations or domestic policy — whether it be passing the budget, or arriving at any kind of permanent settlement with the Palestinian Authority.
But Shelach does not think that Olmert has any intention of leaving office anytime soon, and most Israeli political analysts close to the story agree with him.
According to an anonymous source close to Olmert quoted in this Jerusalem Post article, the prime minister will not resign even if the attorney general decides to indict him. This flies in the face of his explicit promise, made during his Independence Day speech on May 8, to resign if indicted.
Olmert has also promised to step down after his party’s primaries on September 17. This, too, may well turn out to be a bluff. The prime minister is required by law to remain in office until his successor puts together a coalition government, which could take up to three months. If his successor — either Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni or Transportation Minister (and former IDF chief of staff) Shaul Mofaz — fails to cobble together a government, which is a very possible scenario, elections will be called for sometime in March 2009. Meanwhile, Olmert will still be prime minister.
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Lisa Goldman is a freelance Canadian-Israeli journalist, who blogs at On the Face. She lives in Tel Aviv.
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6 Comments
1. Meir Javedanfar:Kadima supporters should be hoping that Tzipi Livni wins the primaries. Otherwise, the future of their party may be in serious jeopardy.
Sep 10, 2008 - 1:34 am 2. Ken Besig:The whole Ehud Olmert fiasco has exposed the culture of corruption which has infected Israeli politics since the retirement of Yitzchak Shamir and the death of Yitzchak Rabin. The former General and Israeli hero, Ariel Sharon was the first Prime Minister in Israeli history to deliberately and purposely subvert Israeli democracy and abuse his political position to illegally enrich himself, his family, and his cronies. Indeed, if not for Sharon’s timely stroke, he would have been under the same Police investigation shadow as Ehud Olmert. As it was, Ariel Sharon managed, much like Ehud Olmert is now doing, to poison his legacy with his legal shenanigans. But far worse, Sharon allowed his own son Omri to take the fall for his crimes. Yes, Omri Sharon went to trial and had to spend seven months in jail for financial crimes both he and his father committed getting Ariel Sharon elected. Yes Ehud Olmert is a louse, a scoundrel, and probably a criminal and is tragically an accurate reflection and representation of present day Israeli society. Just remember, that if Ariel Sharon had not fallen ill, he would have been reelected in a landslide victory because of his behavior. As it was, the Israeli electorate knew perfectly well what we were getting by electing Ehud Olmert as the leader of a political party, Kadima, made up of renegades and amoral would be politicians. We all knew Olmert as a flawed, conniving, and possibly criminal individual with doubtful leadership skills, but one who would probably continue on the unethical, criminal, and immoral path that Sharon laid down.
Sep 10, 2008 - 4:33 am 3. P. Ami:Mr. Besig,
Sep 10, 2008 - 12:04 pm 4. Danny:A Man who handed land to a sworn enemy for paper stained with ink is no moral paragon. Shamir and Rabin traded value, bought with blood and effort, for that Oslo Agreement which has no worth. The moral weakness of Rabin in the battlefield was reflected in his idiotic decision to agree to a weakening of his nation’s position.
P.Ami, Shamir voted against Oslo.
Sep 11, 2008 - 10:47 am 5. mxxx:Aren’t the police also corrupt for tring Olmert in the press by leaking everything?
Sep 11, 2008 - 10:43 pm 6. Danny:mxxx, no.
Sep 13, 2008 - 10:06 pm