Last update - 00:00 14/06/2007
PM to appoint finance minister in upcoming cabinet reshuffle
By Motti Bassok, Haaretz Correspondent
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is expected to appoint a new finance minister within two weeks, as part of a cabinet reshuffle.
Olmert will apparently choose another Kadima member for this post, in which the PM serves as acting minister since Abraham Hirchson suspended himself for three months in April, due to police investigations into his affairs. He is not expected to return.
The four candidates for finance minister are Housing Minister Meir Sheetrit, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, Interior Minister Roni Bar-On and MK Haim Ramon.
The post of Negev and Galilee development has also been vacated, following Vice Premier Shimon Peres' election as state president yesterday.
Sheetrit, who is very keen to return to the treasury, served as finance minister from February to July 1999, and held the post of minister in the treasury at the beginning of Benjamin Netanyahu's term as finance minister in 2003.
However, Olmert sees him as a political rival in Kadima, despite Sheetrit's loyalty to him during and after the Second Lebanon War.
Mofaz, who would have had a chance of being appointed defense minister had Ami Ayalon won in Labor's primary, will now demand the finance portfolio. But Olmert sees Mofaz, too, as a political rival for the post of prime minister and for Kadima's leadership. In addition, Mofaz is believed to consider going back to the Likud every now and then. If appointed treasurer, Mofaz will become one of the cabinet's most senior ministers.
Bar-On is seen as Olmert's close associate over the past 20 years and is one of the prime minister's few confidants. But Olmert wants to appoint Ramon, who has become his confidant in the last two years, to the post.
However, they both know that this appointment would be extremely problematic. Ramon was recently convicted of committing an indecent act; appointing him finance minister would raise objections from women's and civil rights organizations. A petition to the High Court of Justice could also be expected.
Ramon is believed to understand economics, though he has never been a senior economic minister or chaired an economic Knesset committee.
Avraham Shochat and Hirchson, for example, became treasurers after serving as chairmen of the Knesset's Finance Committee. However, Ramon spearheaded two major economic moves in the early '90s. In 1992-1994, when he was health minister in Yitzhak Rabin's cabinet, he pushed to enact a state health insurance law.
In 1994 he and his colleagues Amir Peretz (Labor) and Haim Oron (Meretz) formed the New Life faction in the Histadrut, which defeated Labor in the elections for the labor federation's leadership.
As Histadrut chairman Ramon dismantled and sold off its economic assets, beginning with Hevrat Ha'ovdim, its holding company.
Senior treasury officials said that appointing a new finance minister is urgent. The ministry has no director or leadership since Hirchson's exit and is in a crisis.
They said the Tax Authority has no manager and many of the younger, more talented officials are leaving, and that there is no coordination among the ministry's divisions.
The officials said it was imperative to appoint a finance minister quickly, especially as the cabinet was due to make major decisions concerning the state budget for 2008.
The Negev and Galilee Development Ministry is considered a negligible post, with a small budget, which was custom-made for Peres. However, quite a few Kadima and Labor candidates are apparently eager for the job.