Kadima MKs are expected to approve Vice Premier Shimon Peres as their party's presidential candidate this week, a move that will effectively launch Peres' campaign.

Peres has refrained from openly campaigning.

Coalition Chairman MK Avigdor Yitzhaki (Kadima) said on Saturday that the country's elected representatives must choose an appropriate president for the public. He said Peres is a man of many virtues who is well-suited for the position, as opinion polls have shown.

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Yitzhaki is the head of a group of Kadima MKs that opposes the "Peres law," so named because abolishing the secret balloting for the presidency is expected to guarantee a win for Peres. The bill is not expected to pass. Yitzhaki, speaking at a cultural forum in Be'er Sheva on Saturday morning, said legislation should not be used to promote Peres' candidacy and to turn his election into a political deal.

Peres' supporters, apparently after realizing that the Peres law would not pass, have started lobbying on his behalf.

Some have even been trying to build support within the Labor Party, which he left more than a year ago. Even though Labor has its own presidential hopeful, MK Colette Avital, Peres supporters believe they can convince some Labor MKs to vote for their man.

Senior Labor MKs say it may be necessary to ask the party's Central Committee to choose between Avital and Peres as Labor's official presidential candidate.

Mayors back Peres

This weekend, about 40 mayors and council heads - including current Laborites and others who left for Kadima - signed a letter of support for Peres.

The letter was written by the chairman of the Union of Local Authorities, Adi Eldar (Kadima), himself a former Laborite.

"We sense that the people need you at this time in order to glorify the institution of the presidency in Israel," the letter stated. "Your position in the world and in Israel and the great respect the people have for you are a firm foundation on which to build the image of the presidency."

At the Be'er Sheva event, Yitzhaki also criticized the country's leadership and said that Israel is in its greatest leadership crisis ever.

The coalition chairman heaped faint praise on the prime minister.

"Olmert was the most fitting person from among those presented in the last elections," he said. "It will take time until we succeed in presenting a leadership to the public that can be trusted and relied upon."

This was not the first time Yitzhaki has criticized the leadership and embarrassed Olmert.

Last night, Yitzhaki said his comments that morning were not meant as an attack on the prime minister, emphasizing that Olmert was and still is the person most suited to be Israel's prime minister.