Sharon To Leave Political Party

Israeli Prime Minister Quit Likud Party Before Upcoming Elections

(AP) 
Separately, Palestinians are concentrating on their own parliamentary election, set for Jan. 25, with the violent Islamic group Hamas running candidates for the first time and posing a significant challenge to the ruling Fatah Party of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Fatah primary elections began Saturday in the desert oasis of Jericho, and as expected, the Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat won the nomination for the town's only seat, election officials said Sunday.

This month's surprise election of Peretz, a fiery union leader, as head of Labor accelerated the spiral toward early elections.

Labor joined Sharon's coalition government in January to buttress support for the Gaza pullout, but in one of his first moves, Peretz extracted letters of resignation from the eight Labor Cabinet ministers last week.

In a strident campaign speech, his first as party leader, Peretz told the convention that Sharon had partially corrected his mistake of building settlements in Gaza by pulling out, but he charged that in constructing them in the first place, Sharon had wasted "billions that could have been used to turn the education system around."

Blaming Sharon and his ex-finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu for increasing poverty and "humiliating" the poor, Peretz appealed to Israel's lower classes, traditionally Likud voters. "Come join the new social pact," he said, "you are not abandoning Likud. Likud has abandoned you," emphasizing social issues over Israel's traditional election deciders — security and the Palestinian issue.

In a brief reference to Mideast peacemaking, Peretz said he favors a united Jerusalem as Israel's capital and opposes permitting Palestinian refugees to return to Israel — an attempt to counter efforts to portray him as an extreme dove who would make far-reaching concessions to the Palestinians.

He also said that creation of a Palestinian state is in Israel's interest as well as the Palestinians'.