Israel's prime minister and Kadima Party leader Ehud Olmert has struck a last-minute agreement with his coalition partner, the Labor Party, to avoid the dissolution of the Knesset and early elections. Olmert promised to hold an election for the Kadima leadership by late September. The agreement, reached in overnight talks between Kadima and Labor, led to the suspension of a bill, scheduled for preliminary reading on Wednesday, that would have dissolved the current Knesset.
Against the background of a continuing corruption investigation of the prime minister, Labor Party leader and defense minister Ehud Barak had urged his legislators to vote for the bill, first proposed by the opposition Likud party. The Labor Party's backing of the bill would have ensured a majority. Ehud Olmert struck back by threatening to fire Labor ministers who voted for the bill, a move that would have left him in charge of a minority government.
