Israeli Rivals Livni and Netanyahu Try to Woo Small Parties After Inconclusive Poll

Israel's two contenders for power, Tzipi Livni and her rightwing rival Binyamin Netanyahu, were locked in talks with smaller parties today , each trying to forge enough support to emerge at the head of a new coalition government.

Livni, the foreign minister and head of the centrist Kadima party, came out of yesterday's general elections just one seat ahead of Netanyahu, the Likud leader, with nearly all the votes counted. But Livni only becomes prime minister if she can stitch together a majority coalition, and most analysts said that, given the combined strength of the rightwing parties, she faced an uphill struggle.

The rightwing and religious Jewish parties won around 65 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, with the centrist, leftwing and Arab Israeli parties falling several seats short of a combined majority.

Livni was quick to meet yesterday with Avigdor Lieberman, the far-right leader who came in a strong third in the vote with 15 seats and who may offer her the chance to build a coalition. Although their policy platforms appear leagues apart she may be able to tempt him to offer support with a promise of electoral reforms for a more presidential style of government, a long-held Lieberman demand. Another sweetener, however costly, might be to offer him a position as finance minister.

"The public decided and established who it wants to see as the prime minister," Livni said to Lieberman at the end of the meeting. "This is an opportunity for unity that can promote the issues that are important to you as well."

Later in the day Lieberman also met Netanyahu, who is regarded as a more likely political ally. For his part, Netanyahu held his first talks with Shas, an ultra-Orthodox party that won 11 seats and which he wants as a coalition partner.

Most analysts still believe Netanyahu is most likely to emerge as prime minister. Several thousand votes remain to be counted, mostly soldiers and Israelis living abroad, all of whom tend to support the right wing, and that may strengthen Netanyahu's hand. Likud officials have already ruled out sharing a rotating premiership with Livni.

Once the official results have been formally published next Wednesday, Israel's president, Shimon Peres, will select one MP and give him or her the task of forming a coalition within 42 days. He does not have to choose the largest party, only the one most likely to succeed in making a coalition.

"Tzipi Livni has only the slightest chance, or none at all, of forming a government under her leadership," said Avraham Diskin, a political scientist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Aluf Benn, diplomatic editor at the left-leaning Ha'aretz paper, said he too believed Netanyahu had a better chance of forming a coalition. But he said the Likud leader was wary of forming a government that was too rightwing, for fear it might come under intense pressure from the Obama administration. Netanyahu does not back the current talks for a two-state solution that would see the creation of an independent Palestinian state, and the other rightwing parties hold even more conservative positions.

"The problem is that the easiest coalition for him to form is a very rightwing coalition," said Benn. "He knows this is going to cause him a lot of trouble abroad. Obama's administration is not going to be happy about that."

One other sign of the troubles facing Livni was a report suggesting that Ehud Barak, the defence minister and head of the fourth-placed Labour party, had told his colleagues the party was unlikely to join a coalition and would instead go into opposition. labor would be the first obvious ally for a Livni government.

In public, Barak has not showed his hand, but it is thought there are several figures within the party who are eager to replace him in an internal leadership contest after Labour's poor showing in yesterday's polls.

The contest between Livni and Netanyahu for the premiership is only just beginning and is likely to intensify in the days ahead. Each side insists it is in the right.

"It's legitimate for Netanyahu to try, but this is unprecedented," Ronnie Bar-On, the current finance minister and Kadima MP, told the Ynet news website. "Livni won the elections. What is Netanyahu thinking? That he can speak with all the factions today, put them on a piece of paper, and determine the fate of the state for four years?"