Coalition Chairman Avigdor Yitzhaki of Kadima said Saturday that Israel's leadership crisis is the most difficult since the state's founding.

"Olmert was the most fitting person from among the gallery presented in the last elections," he said. "It will take time until we succeed in presenting leadership to the public that can be trusted and relied upon. The solution, however, lies not in bringing in those whom we have never liked - Netanyahu for example."

Yitzhaki also said that every beginning prime minister must know that he may have to undergo a police investigation.

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Speaking in Be'er Sheva, Yitzhaki said that the Kadima leadership will convene shortly to determine the party's stance on the candidacy of Vice Premier Shimon Peres (Kadima) for president.

The coalition chairman said Peres is a man rich in virtues and well suited to the position of president, but that there is no reason to hasten his appointment through amending "personal" legislation that would change the selection of president to a secretive, rather than an open, process.

Yitzhaki added that the process of distributing cabinet posts would be carried out in cooperation with Labor and Yisrael Beiteinu.