Prime Minister-designate Tzipi Livni announced Thursday that she will decide on Sunday whether to continue to try to form a coalition or go the polls in new general elections. "The time has come for a decision," she told members of Kadima during a party meeting in Petach Tikva. Livni told those assembled that she had been inclined to hold new national elections after she was chosen as the new head of Kadima, but she decided to attempt to create a coalition instead because "I felt it was right to assemble a stable government." However, she said, she is not willing to pay an overly high price to obtain a stable coalition, and would rather hold new elections than give in to unreasonable demands. Political analysts said earlier in the day that it was possible Livni would call early elections if she failed to form a coalition by the beginning of the week, inasmuch as she is hoping to present a new government as part of the start of the Knesset's winter session on Monday. Coalition talks between Kadima and the Sephardic religious Shas party appeared to be foundering Wednesday night after Shas rejected what it said was Livni's latest offer to transfer NIS 650 million ($168 million) to raise the budget for child allowances and religious institutions. Shas has demanded a budget of NIS 1 billion. The Sephardic religious party said Kadima was misleading the public, and had also tried to deceive the party. "We did not ask for money for the yeshivot," Communications Minister Ariel Atias said during a closed faction meeting. "We didn't want it and we don't understand why they are pushing it. We asked them why they were doing this, as it already appears in the coalition agreement." Officials in the Kadima party suspect that Shas is making "impossible" demands for a coalition agreement in order to force elections without putting the responsibility on Livni for not agreeing to its terms. The Kadima chairwoman is also continuing her talks with the leftist Meretz party, the senior citizens' Pensioners' party and the hareidi religious United Torah Judaism party, with whom she believes she might be able to form a narrow coalition if all else fails. Livni said Thursday afternoon, however, that "the final hour has arrived" and that Shas would have to "make up its mind" as to whether it wanted to join the government or go to general elections. Coalition talks between Kadima and the Gil Pensioners' Party ran into trouble on Thursday when Pensioners' party head Rafi Eitan angrily canceled a meeting with Kadima representatives. Eitan said the draft agreement written by Kadima "proves that pensioners are not among the designated Prime Minister's top concerns." The prime minister-designate has less than two weeks to go before President Peres will be forced to turn to other options. The president also has the option to ask Labor or Likud to form a government, but neither party has any practical possibility of succeeding.
