Israeli politicians play "musical chairs" as elections loom

Israel's home front defense minister and former member of center-left Kadima party, Avi Dichter, announced over the weekend plans to join the ruling right- wing Likud party. Dichter made the announcement amid Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent decision to advance national elections to Jan. 22 instead of in October 2013 as previously scheduled. Dichter served as both head of the internal security service Shin Bet and public security minister in former primeminister Ehud Olmert's government. He was appointed as minister of home front command in August while Kadima was still a part of Netanyahu 's coalition government. Dichter, who quit Kadima three months ago after failing to secure the top spot for himself, will be running in Netanyahu's Likud party primary elections and will not be safeguarded a spot on the party list in advance. Local news outlets reported that he also received a proposition from Labor party leader Shelly Yachimovich to join the center-left party on the "defense expert" spot, but turned it down. Dichter is not the only one to defect from Kadima to Likud. Former minister Tzachi Hanegbi left Kadima two months ago and returned to his original party, where he began his political career. On Thursday, Kadima Chairman Shaul Mofaz said he would be willing to step down if Olmert decided to return to politics. Olmert himself stepped down from the premiership in 2009 after accusations of bribery started to surface against him. In July, a court acquitted Olmert in two separate bribery cases: one including charges of being handed cash-filled envelopes as bribes, and the other in which he allegedly double-billed fund- raising trips on behalf of organizations and institutions. He was, however, found guilty of breach of public trust, and sentenced to pay a 75,000-shekel (about 20,000 U.S. dollars) fine. Legally, the relatively light-punishment enables Olmert to return to serving in public roles, and political analysts are bruiting about his possible plans to take part in the upcoming elections. To that end, Olmert met with several political figures last week, including Mofaz and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, as well as former Kadima head Tzipi Livne, who served as Olmert's foreign minister. Olmert's supporters within the Kadima party believe that he is the only one who could beat Netnayahu in the elections. Polls show the prime minister as a leading -- and so far unthreatened -- contender to assemble the next government.