Ehud Olmert said he backed Shimon Peres for the Israeli presidency despite their differences over the Lebanon war. The prime minister moved Sunday to rebut media reports suggesting that, after it was revealed that Peres told a war inquiry commission that he disagreed with the scale of Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah, he would no longer have the governing Kadima Party’s support for his presidential bid. “I have no other candidate for the presidency,” Israel’s Army Radio quoted Olmert as saying. “We will continue striving for Peres to receive the appointment.” Peres is the front-runner to succeed President Moshe Katsav, whose term ends in July but who is widely expected to resign early given prosecutors’ stated intention to file rape charges against him.
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