Tzipi Livni Wins Party Vote in Israel
Foreign Minister Has Chance to Be Country's First Female Premier in 34 Years

By Samuel Sockol and Griff Witte
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 18, 2008

JERUSALEM, Sept. 18 -- Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Wednesday narrowly won the leadership of the main party in Israel's governing coalition, exit polls showed, giving her the chance to become Israel's first female prime minister in more than three decades.

Livni, who has served as Israel's chief negotiator during nearly a year of U.S.-backed talks with the Palestinians and who favors pressing forward with those discussions, defeated a more hawkish challenger, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz.

Livni won approximately 43.1 percent of the vote, compared with 42 percent for Mofaz, with other candidates picking up the remainder, according to final results from Wednesday's Kadima party primary.

"We have proven that there are different politics here," Livni said in her victory speech. "People have engulfed me in love and it doesn't matter if they are Kadima members or not. These are the people standing behind this decision." Mofaz congratulated Livni on the victory.

The victory gives Livni 42 days to put together a new governing coalition with the centrist Kadima party at its head. If she fails, Israel will hold general elections in early 2009. Currently, opposition leader and former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is favored to win such a vote.

The Kadima primary was spurred by the downfall of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, 62, who has been besieged this summer by multiple corruption investigations. The police have recommended that Olmert be formally indicted on bribery and other charges, and the attorney general is now weighing that decision.

Although Olmert remains in office, he has announced he will soon step down, ending his nearly three-year tenure.

Livni and Olmert share membership in Kadima, but Livni has been one of his staunchest critics -- casting herself as a reformer with little taste for backroom dealing.

Livni is relatively new to politics, having first joined the Knesset, or parliament, in 1999, after a successful career as a lawyer and several years as an agent in the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service.

Her family has long been in the public eye, however: Her parents were prominent members of the Irgun, the underground militia that carried out violent attacks against Arab and British institutions as part of an effort to create a Jewish state in what was then Palestine. Both her parents served jail time for their activities. Her father was later elected to Israel's parliament.

As a child, Livni had close contact with other luminaries of the Israeli right, including future prime minister Menachem Begin. Well into the 1990s, she continued to advocate hard-line views, including opposition to the Oslo peace accords that created a Palestinian authority in the occupied territories.

But when then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon abandoned the Likud party to form the centrist Kadima party three years ago, Livni went with him, supporting his decision to disengage from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005.

Like Sharon, who suffered a stroke in January 2006 and remains in a coma, Livni has said she believes that the growing Arab population in the West Bank poses a long-term threat to Israel's future as a Jewish, democratic state. She now supports a two-state solution to the conflict, with Palestinian refugees allowed to resettle in Palestine but not return to Israel.

"She came from a Likud home and grew up on the notion of the greater land of Israel. But she also grew up in a democratic home. She believes in the idea of a democratic Jewish state," said Dita Kohl-Roman, a close friend and former adviser.

Livni is married and has two grown sons.

In meetings and public appearances, Livni can come off as cold and detached, though friends say her unsmiling persona may in part reflect an effort to allay concerns that, as a woman in a political culture dominated by men, she is not strong enough to defend Israel militarily or go toe-to-toe with Palestinian negotiators.

"The fact that I'm a woman doesn't make me a weak leader," Livni told the Jerusalem Post last week. "I have no problem pulling the trigger when necessary."

But others have their doubts.

"The prime minister has to be a man. Women are not always sensible," said Meir Malka, 49, as he cast his ballot for Mofaz in Jerusalem on Wednesday. Malka said he trusted Mofaz to take a tough line against Iran. "Whoever threatens to destroy Israel, Israel has to destroy," Malka said.

Her critics have long scoffed that Livni, a strict vegetarian out of concern for animal rights, does not have the requisite cunning to succeed in the often cutthroat world of Israeli politics. Many felt she had missed her chance at the prime ministership last year, when anger over Olmert's handling of the Second Lebanon War was at its height and Livni could have forced his hand by quitting the cabinet. Instead, she stayed in office, and Olmert's government survived for another year.

Among Palestinian leaders, Livni has won credibility and some respect for the seriousness with which she has pursued negotiations; she has been meeting chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurei twice a week for secret talks since the U.S.-backed Annapolis peace process began last November. "They are talking substance. They have a healthy relationship," said Gershon Baskin, co-director of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information.

Livni has also won the admiration of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; the two usually dine together during Rice's frequent visits to the Middle East.

The primary campaign between Livni and Mofaz was a low-key affair, with both candidates eschewing mass rallies or in-depth interviews. Because the membership of Kadima is small -- only 74,000 voters -- the two focused instead on quiet efforts to turn out their supporters.

Among those who chose to vote for Livni in Jerusalem on Wednesday was Micky Azov, 44, who said he was supporting the foreign minister because she "can get us a good agreement with the Palestinians" and because "she stands out in our political system, which is full of corruption."

The challenge facing Livni now is to cobble together a durable coalition. The one she inherits from Olmert -- consisting primarily of Kadima and the center-left Labor Party -- could fracture if the ultra-Orthodox Shas party decides to bolt. A Shas defection would force Livni to look elsewhere for partners to secure the majority she needs in the 120-member Knesset. For that she may turn to the left-wing Meretz party, or possibly the Arab parties.

If she fails, she may miss her chance to become Israel's first female prime minister since Golda Meir left office in 1974; most polls show the Likud party, which opposes the current round of negotiations with the Palestinians and favors a military response to threats from Hamas and Iran, winning a new vote.

"Livni has two options: One is a good one, the other is bad," said Itzhak Galnoor, a political science professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "She will want to continue the coalition. If she heads towards elections, there is a danger."