Prime Minister-designate Yitzhak Shamir said Monday he has succeeded in forming a narrowly based Likud-led government, which he intends to present to the Knesset for approval early next week.
But Shamir’s apparent hesitancy to inform President Chaim Herzog officially of his success has sustained a flurry of rumors that the prime minister and others in Likud still hope to set up another unity government with the Labor Party.
Shamir has until midnight Thursday before his presidential mandate to form a government expires. He said it “appears” he will be presenting a coalition of 61 Knesset supporters, the bare minimum needed. though he hopes his majority will turn out to be “between 61 and 65.”
Shamir explained in response to questions that he has not yet gone directly to Herzog, because he still needs to complete the government and wants to “bring the president a complete thing.”
Observers said he could have been referring to the details of the coalition agreement that must be worked out between Likud and its six coalition partners.
Or Shamir could have been hinting that he still has hopes for an arrangement with Labor, other observers said. They predicted there might yet be surprises before the end of the week.
Labor Party leaders have indicated they would negotiate with Shamir, but only if he is prepared to commit the new government to pursue the peace process.
Shamir has been under considerable pressure from a circle of Likud ministers to establish a narrow “national government” without further delay. But he would prefer that it not have to depend on a single-vote margin.
Accordingly, the prime minister has made strenuous efforts in recent days to win support of the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Yisrael party, which is still committed to an alliance with Labor, and with the extreme right-wing Moledet faction.
After a meeting Monday, Moledet leader Rehavam Ze’evi said he gave Shamir a verbal commitment of support from his two-member Knesset faction.
Ze’evi said Moledet could be counted on to support the Likud government, “so long as it does not do anything bad — like going to Cairo” for a dialogue with the Palestinians “or holding elections in Judea and Samaria, ” as proposed by Shamir in his spring 1989 peace plan.
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