Barak’s Task Complicated by Sephardic Party Showing

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak on Tuesday set about putting together a government that promises to be as fragmented as the Israeli voting public. First on his agenda: deciding whether to form a coalition with a powerful religious party tied to a convicted felon.

To the shock of many Israelis, the Shas Party, which represents ultra-Orthodox Jews from Middle Eastern countries, nearly doubled its share of seats in parliament in Monday’s national elections and may become decisive in Barak’s ability to govern. Its leader, convicted of bribery two months ago, announced Tuesday that he will continue to run the Shas social movement but will drop out of politics, apparently paving the way for the party to join the government.

Barak’s landslide triumph Monday over conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was seen here as a victory for secular Israelis and gave an impressive mandate to the highly decorated soldier-turned-politician.

But to heal the divisions deepened by the election and conduct an ambitious agenda of foreign and domestic policy, Barak hopes to form as broad-based a coalition as possible from the newly elected 120-member Knesset, or parliament. Fifteen parties won seats; Barak’s Labor Party led the way with 27 members.

Aides said he wants to form the government by June 7, the first session of the Knesset.

Barak has to balance the demands of the secular majority that supports him with those of religious and ethnic opponents whose disenfranchisement could prove perilous. The five-month election campaign highlighted numerous cultural rifts in Israeli society, chief among them the debate over whether conservative religion should limit democratic ideals. The secular-religious debate is now more pronounced than a left-right divide, analysts say.

Despite the secular mood of voters, the Shas Party soared to a close third-place finish--almost catching up with Netanyahu’s center-right Likud Party. Shas won 17 seats, up from 10 in the outgoing Knesset.

Likud won 19, compared with the 32 seats it held previously. Barak’s Labor Party, which ran with several smaller parties in a coalition he named One Israel, lost seven seats from its previous 34.

Analysts here agreed that including Shas in Barak’s government will alienate his core, secular supporters. At the same time, leaving Shas outside the government also carries risks. It is a relatively moderate party on issues involving peace with Arabs and could play a role in making working-class Sephardic Jews feel a part of the system.

Shas grew in power as a social movement fueled by resentment over the abuse that Sephardic Jews, who trace their roots to Middle Eastern and North African countries, have suffered at the hands of Israel’s European elite. In addition to its involvement in politics, Shas controls yeshivas, other schools and social-welfare programs for its faithful.

“Shas is moderate, but you push them against the wall and they become a sect that poses a big danger,” said Daniel Ben-Simon, a writer who covers Shas for the Haaretz newspaper. “You cannot afford to have a cohesive society with a sect that is not part of the society, that has its own language and ethic code. Barak has to attract them into the system.”

The charismatic rabbi who runs Shas, Aryeh Deri, was convicted of bribery and corruption in March and sentenced to four years in prison. He has appealed the sentence.

Barak and most of his allies have said they would refuse to deal with Deri. On Tuesday night, Deri said he will continue to lead the party’s “social and spiritual movement” but relinquish his political role and quit the Knesset. That probably cleared the way for Barak to begin negotiations with Shas.

Still, at least two of the political parties that would be natural allies of the One Israel coalition refused outright to serve alongside Shas.

“If Ehud Barak approaches Shas, his wings will burn,” said Yossi Sarid, head of the leftist Meretz Party, which won nine seats in the Knesset.

“Read my lips,” Sarid said. “Shas will not be in a coalition. Or else, we won’t be. . . . This is a matter of values. Shas has become a true threat to the democratic and Zionist nature of the country.”

Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet refusenik who heads Israel’s largest Russian immigrant party, said he could join a coalition that included Shas, but not with Deri at the helm. And he insisted that his Israel With Immigration party will fight for the Interior Ministry post that Shas held in Netanyahu’s coalition government.

The Interior Ministry controls passports, identity cards and other benefits for new immigrants. Immigrants from the former Soviet Union have said they felt discriminated against by Shas Interior Ministry officials who in turn accuse the Russians of not obeying the laws of the Jewish faith.

Sharansky’s party won seven seats in parliament and is credited with giving Barak a big boost by taking on Shas and Netanyahu’s close ties with the ultra-Orthodox.

“The broader the coalition, the better, but it’s important that it be built with parties that are ready to work together and compromise and not impose one way of life on another,” Sharansky said Tuesday.

Barak’s election sent shock waves through Israel’s right. Likud was in the throes of a succession battle after a defeated Netanyahu resigned the party leadership. Jewish settler groups also expressed dismay at Barak’s victory, and there were reports that some of their leaders were also threatening to step down from their positions.

In the political scramble to put a government together, Barak may even turn to Likud, or recruit another religious party other than Shas, all in the interest of forming as stable a coalition as possible and avoiding the precarious arrangement that plagued Netanyahu. Barak especially will need to reach out to the 1.5 million people who voted for Netanyahu if the new prime minister wants to make good on his appeal to unity.

“Barak may want to invite first his enemies, then his friends” to join the government, Ben-Simon said. “Bringing the rejected groups closer to the establishment is the only way to fight the sectarian crisis.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Israeli Vote Totals

Unofficial results of Israel’s election Monday based on 99.9% of 7,021 polling stations reporting, or 93.6% of votes cast:

PRIME MINISTER

Ehud Barak (One Israel/Labor): 56.0%

Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud): 43.9%

PARLIAMENT (KNESSET)

*--*

Party Percentage of votes Seats One Israel (Labor) 20.0% 27 Likud 14.0 19 Centrist 5.0 6 National Religious Party 4.2 5 Shas 13.1 17 Meretz 7.4 9 Israel With Immigration 5.2 7 Hadash 2.6 3 United Torah Judaism 3.9 5 Third Way 0.7 0 Arab Democratic Party 3.5 5 National Union 2.9 3 Shinui 4.9 6 Yisrael Beiteinu 2.6 4 Pnina Rosenblum 1.3 0 National Democratic Alliance 2.0 2 One Nation 1.9 2

*--*

Note: Percentages are calculated by Malam Systems, a company authorized by the election authorities to provide election figures to the media.