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Labour to join coalition
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ISRAEL'S vanquished Labour party voted on Monday to join forces with hardline Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon's Likud party and form a national unity government to confront a deadly months-old Palestinian uprising.
The party's central committee voted by secret ballot after a stormy five-hour meeting in Tel Aviv to approve its inclusion in a broad-based coalition led by the hawkish Sharon despite bitter internal feuding over the issue.
Labour party Secretary General Raanan Cohen said 66 per cent voted in favour of joining the government, while 32.2 per cent were opposed and the rest abstained. Although only 753 members of the 1,700-strong committee voted, Cohen said the vote “committed the entire party".
The committee is due to meet today to approve distribution of portfolios offered by Likud to Labour, including the key foreign affairs and defence ministry posts.
“This vote is a victory for Israel and the Labour party," said former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who was the leading proponent of joining a national unity government. “It will be a government in the spirit of peace."
Sharon, who trounced outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak in an election three weeks ago, has sought to forge a broad government to temper his hardline image in an effort to end the deadly five-month wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence.(SD-Agencies)
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