Sharon to name Kadima allies to fill in cabinet

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is likely to gain cabinet approval to name members of his new Kadima party to replace Labor party ministers who resigned last week, local newspaper Ha'aretz reported Sunday.

The appointments will be temporary, and Sharon intends to ask the cabinet in its Sunday session to approve a proposal under which he along with Kadima members Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni, MeirSheetrit, Avraham Hirschson and Gideon Ezra will serve as acting ministers of interior, national infrastructure, communications,housing, environment and science, said the report.

The proposed ministers are all those who broke away from the Likud last week to help form Kadima.

Sharon's aides said on Dec. 9, when the present cabinet becomes a caretaker cabinet, Sharon will also appoint ministers from among Kadima parliament members, apparently Roni Bar-On, Ze'ev Boim and possibly Ruhama Avraham.

However, Sharon faces opposition from six remaining Likud cabinet ministers, Silvan Shalom, Shaul Mofaz, Tzachi Hanegbi,Limor Livnat, Danny Naveh and Yisrael Katz.

Out of a total of 12 sitting ministers in the current cabinet,six are Sharon's supporters from Kadima, and six are Likud members.

According to the Basic Law on The Government, Sharon must bring even these temporary appointments to the cabinet for approval.

Should Sharon lack a majority in the cabinet, he may have tofire some or all of the Likud ministers.

After quitting the right-wing Likud he co-founded three decades ago, Sharon registered his new centrist party Kadima on Thursday and vowed to contend in the coming general elections set on March 28, 2006.

Source: Xinhua