Anything but elections

A certain person has become embroiled at his "workplace" in suspicions of criminality, of having accepted envelopes overflowing with dollars about which it is not clear whence they came and where they went. Even if the "workplace" is the prime ministership, and even if the suspicions are confirmed by the law-enforcement system, and there is corruption here of the first degree, there is no justification for toppling the government and dragging the country into general elections.

It is Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's right to defend himself, but going by experience and not just by the number of lawyers leaping to his defense, it is possible to figure that we are talking about the kind of investigation that drags on for a long time. Even if somehow he is extricated from an indictment, perhaps through a plea bargain between the prosecution and the defense, as in the arrangement with president Ezer Weizman, the impression is Olmert will no longer be able to continue as prime minister.

It is hard to understand how the man has the spiritual strength, or to put it plainly, the shamelessness, to depart at this moment for a trip to the United States, as a guest of honor at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference. He will also meet with, among others, President George W. Bush. Isn't it interesting what they will have to say to each other? Will Olmert say he is a victim of being a peacemaker or simply of a plot? And will the president nod his head and reply: Don't take it to heart, that's how it is in politics. What do you think, that we haven't accepted donations from wealthy Jews? Isn't it interesting how he will be treated by his millionaire pals, the "anonymous donors" who helped him get elected?

Even before Defense Minister Ehud Barak rocked the boat with a preemptive demand to get rid of Olmert, because if not, he will have no hesitations about having elections brought forward, Kadima was busy with whispers and secret organizing for his succession with the utmost caution, for fear of Olmert's power and cunning that forgets and forgives nothing. Two or three times he has threatened Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni that if she continues to voice criticism of him and talks too much about honesty in leadership, she is liable to find herself on the outside. He has indeed neutralized her access to secret information, such as that about the indirect talks with Syria.

If Kadima wants to prove it is a party with a backbone, it must respond to Barak's suggestion and solve the problem of Olmert without general elections. If it proves beyond its powers to put its house in order and find a replacement for Olmert, this will be a sign that it is not deserving of power. To replace the prime minister, it is not necessary to bring the whole house crashing down on us. They should let him resign from Kadima and conduct his legal defense without shaking up the whole country with an early election campaign.

In the history of the State of Israel there have been four changes of prime minister without elections: Levi Eshkol after David Ben-Gurion; Golda Meir after Eshkol; Yitzhak Rabin after Golda; and Yitzhak Shamir after Menachem Begin, who resigned with his unforgettable statement, "I can't anymore."

Now, too, there is nothing to block the replacement of the prime minister without general elections with the existing coalition, which will hold up until the end of its term in 2010.

Even though Golda Meir, the only woman to have served as prime minister, brought the Yom Kippur War down on Israel in her insistence that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people, and there is no one to whom to return territories, that doesn't mean Livni, the most popular politician in the public opinion polls, will bring disaster down on us the way macho Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz is in his campaign against her and for himself as a real man and nonpareil when it comes to defense issues. Livni, a graduate of Herut, the major predecessor of Likud, has evinced more courage than Mofaz in pointing out Olmert's defense errors, and she had balls of steel, you should pardon the expression, to demand outright that Olmert resign. It is no accident that in most of the public opinion polls she is in the lead as the candidate to become prime minister, and she is worthy of being chosen in primaries to head Kadima so she can continue the current peace coalition.

General elections at this time are, above all, a waste of money; NIS 2 billion, according to TheMarker's calculations. Since we have no mechanism for swift elections as there is in Britain, an election campaign will come at the worst time for the economy. Tal Silberstein's remarks along the lines of "what are a few envelopes of dollars as compared with the $1.5 million suitcase that Barak took" are also indicative of the kind of dirty atmosphere that will prevail in the election race and of the corruption stories that will inundate the country. The thought that while they are fighting it out for the ballot box, Hamas will continue to rain down rockets on our towns with the Israel Defense Forces limited in its ability to respond with all its might is chilling.

With no hope that premature elections will give rise to some meteor, that which has been is that which shall be after the elections except for the replacement of Olmert by Livni. In a game that has failed, you replace the coach - not the team.