Sharon To Leave Political Party

Israeli Prime Minister Quit Likud Party Before Upcoming Elections

(AP)  Israel's dovish Labor Party voted Sunday to pull out of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government, and Sharon reportedly decided to quit his Likud Party to set up a new movement — beginning a campaign for elections expected in March.

Sharon is expected to take several prominent Likud Cabinet ministers with him to his new party, along with some from Labor — possibly including its ousted chairman Shimon Peres.

Advancing Israel's election from the original November 2006 date would likely sideline Mideast peace moves and counter whatever momentum was gained from Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and part of the West Bank, completed in September.

Sharon's Gaza pullout, a dramatic about-face after decades of settlement building and expansion in the West Bank and Gaza fractured his party. Rebels in the Likud faction in parliament withheld support from his initiatives.

On Monday, Sharon is to ask Israel's president to disperse the parliament, setting in motion a process leading to elections in March, Army Radio reported.

Increasingly frustrated by the Likud rebellion, Sharon decided on the daring step of leaving the party he helped create in 1973, according to Likud activists. That would leave Likud as a bastion of hardline opponents to compromise with the Palestinians.

"I regret Sharon's decision to leave and would have preferred that he continue his struggle within Likud," said Ehud Yatom, a Likud member of parliament who was among the leaders of the internal rebellion against Sharon.

Polls in weekend Israeli newspapers showed that if Sharon remains in Likud, it would maintain much of its present strength, while Labor's newly elected leader Amir Peretz would lead his party to a healthy increase. Sharon at the head of a new party would scramble the electoral picture, with Likud as the main loser, according to the polls.

Peretz had pushed for Labor to leave Sharon's government.