Sharon refuses to quit and plans years in power
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon remained defiant in the face of bribery allegation insisting that the scandal will not stop him completing his term in office.
He rejected calls to step aside because a property developer has been accused of giving him a £400,000 (€578,700) bribe.
“I arrived here as prime minister and as chairman of the Likud, a position I plan to fill for many more years, until 2007 at least,” Mr Sharon told cheering supporters in Jerusalem yesterday. He was referring to the date of the next scheduled election.
It was Mr Sharon’s first public comment since Israeli businessman David Appel was indicted on bribery charges.
Justice Ministry officials said they would decide within weeks or months whether to indict the prime minister for accepting bribes.
Such charges would only be filed if prosecutors are convinced Mr Sharon had criminal intent.
Despite a flurry of criticism, hard-line Mr Sharon was not in a mood to quit.
“I am not about to resign. I emphasise, I am not about to resign. I am busy with work from morning to night, and I do not intend to make time for issues that are under investigation,” he told the Yediot Ahronot newspaper.
He said the burgeoning scandal would not deflect his attention from what he considers to be more pressing issues, including a hearing at the world court in The Hague on the legality of a barrier Israel is building in the West Bank.
An opinion poll yesterday found that 49% of Israelis think Mr Sharon should resign or suspend himself now while 38% said he should stay on as premier.
The focus of the scandal is the so-called “Greek Island Affair”, in which Appel allegedly paid Mr Sharon’s son Gilad money so Mr Sharon, then foreign minister, would use his influence to help Appel promote a project in Greece in 1999.
Opposition politicians urged 75-year-old Mr Sharon to resign now, and a leadership struggle in the ruling Likud Party already was brewing.
There is precedent for Israeli politicians to resign as a result of scandal, but there have also been cases where, despite suspicion, no indictments were handed down, and leaders have held on despite criticism.
A former general, Mr Sharon is considered likely to wage a fierce battle to maintain his leadership.
“He will fight until the last bullet,” political analyst Hanan Crystal said. “But Richard Nixon was a fighter. You cannot fight against everything.”
Appel was indicted in the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court for allegedly giving Sharon hundreds of thousands of dollars to use his influence to push the Greek Island project and to help rezone urban land near Tel Aviv. Neither project came to fruition.
