Sharon expected to leave Likud party

JERUSALEM -- Beset by dissidents in his party, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has decided to abandon the conservative Likud bloc and has plans to compete in early elections as head of a new party, Israeli media reported yesterday.

News reports said Sharon would make a formal announcement today and ask President Moshe Katsav to dissolve the parliament, a move that would trigger early elections, most likely in March.

Majalli Whbee, a Likud lawmaker who is close to Sharon, told Army Radio that the prime minister had telephoned him about his decision to form a new party.

Sharon's formation of a new party would represent a tectonic shift in Israeli politics and a risky gambit for the 77-year-old prime minister.

Though bedeviled by members of his party who opposed Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and small portions of the West Bank during the summer, Sharon remains the most popular politician in Israel. Still, analysts have pointed out that hurriedly formed centrist parties have not fared well in the past.

None of the previous bids, however, was by a sitting prime minister. Sharon gained considerable public backing by carrying out the Gaza withdrawal, and he could use a mandate gained through a new electoral victory to evacuate additional settlements.

''We all know we are waking up to a new day," said Whbee, who has been mentioned along with a dozen or more Likud parliamentarians who might join with Sharon in forming a new party. There are 40 Likud members in the Knesset.

A spokesman for the prime minister would not confirm news reports about Sharon's decision to leave Likud. A report on the web site of Yediot Aharonot, Israel's biggest-circulation daily newspaper, said Sharon was preparing separate speeches in case he decided to reverse course and remain in Likud, which he helped form in the 1970s.

Sharon is scheduled to address a Likud gathering today. He is a master of political brinksmanship, and it remained unclear whether word of his departure might have been a last-minute ploy aimed at controlling rebellious members of his party.

It is unclear whether Sharon would be joined in a new party by Shimon Peres, the 82-year-old former leader of the left-leaning Labor Party. Peres was behind a decision by his party to join Sharon's coalition early this year as a way to keep the government intact long enough to carry out the Gaza withdrawal. But Peres was unseated as Labor chief two weeks ago by Amir Peretz, who opposed the alliance.

At a Cabinet meeting yesterday, probably the last of the current Cabinet, Sharon praised Peres and said, ''This is the beginning of the joint work between us."

Labor voted formally yesterday to leave the governing coalition, which virtually assured elections would be held before their scheduled date next November.