JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel's foreign minister and Kadima party number two challenged Ehud Olmert's party leadership on Thursday, calling for an unprecedented primary amid demands he quit as premier over graft suspicions.
"Kadima should start preparing now for any possible scenario, including elections. I am a big believer in primaries," said Tzipi Livni, who is also deputy prime minister.
"I believe most of the public should be involved in the election of the (party) leadership. This way we will be able to retrieve the public's support in Kadima," she told reporters in Jerusalem.
At no point, however, did Livni explicitly call for Olmert to step down as party leader or as premier.
Kadima, founded hastily by former prime minister Ariel Sharon before the March 2006 elections, does not have an internal mechanism for ousting a leader or holding leadership elections.
Israel has been abuzz with speculation about a snap election in late 2008 or early 2009.
It began after a key ally in the government coalition, Defence Minister and Labour party leader Ehud Barak , joined calls for Olmert to step down over allegations he illegally received large sums of cash from a US financier.
"The prime minister should take decisions, his party needs to take decisions. If they don't, we will make those decisions for them," Barak said on Thursday.
Rina Mazliah, a political commentator with the privately run Channel 2 news, summed up the situation by saying: "Ehud Barak placed the gun on the table and Livni put the bullet down."
As the pressure mounted, Attorney General Menahem Mazuz decided after meeting the state prosecution on Thursday to speed up the Olmert investigation, the justice ministry said.
"We can't ignore recent days' events. The issue is not only legal, it is not only a criminal question," Livni said. "These are not the prime minister's personal issues. These are questions of values and norms we want to apply."
Olmert, whose term ends in late 2010, has said he has no intention of quitting, although an opinion poll on Thursday found that 70 percent of people surveyed thought he should go.
"I am going to continue to exercise my functions," the embattled premier said on Wednesday.
"Some people think that each time an investigation is launched it has to lead to a resignation. But I don't share that opinion -- and I am not going to give up."
However, if Olmert were to be indicted over the latest scandal, he would be legally bound to step aside.
Olmert, 62, has denied any wrongdoing over the allegations that have been simmering since police first questioned him in the affair on May 2. He has, however, acknowledged receiving campaign donations.
But experts say it will be difficult for him to focus on peace talks with the Palestinians and indirect negotiations with Syria while fighting for his own political survival.
Olmert, who flies to Washington on Monday for a three-day visit and a meeting with US President George W. Bush, has asked Kadima MPs not to do anything until his return, Maariv newspaper reported.
Barak, himself a former premier, said that unless Kadima acts to form a new government, with Labour's support, "we will work to decide on a new agreed early date for elections."
Without the support of Labour's 19 MPs Olmert's coalition would lose its majority in the 120-member Knesset.
A poll for the daily Haaretz cited by public television late on Thursday said that in the event of an election now, the opposition right-wing Likud party of former premier Benjamin Netanyahu would emerge the winner.
Likud would win 35 seats (from 12 in 2006) and Kadima which currently has 29 seats would gain just 13, the poll said.
Labour would remain the same at 19, predicted the poll, further details of which were not reported.
Barak dropped his political bombshell a day after Jewish-American financier Morris Talansky testified before a Jerusalem court that he had given Olmert large amounts of cash stuffed into envelopes.
Talansky said he had given Olmert at least 150,000 dollars in the 15 years before he became prime minister in 2006, some of which might have been used to fund Olmert's taste for luxury goods.
Olmert faces three more police inquiries into suspected corruption involving potential conflicts of interest, fraudulent property transactions and abuse of power linked to political appointments.
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