Fringe leader relishes role in limelight

To listen to the election victory speech last night of the Shinui Party's leader, Tommy Lapid, you'd think the party had come first, not third, and Mr Lapid was about to become Prime Minister. But what he is more likely to become is kingmaker.

The 71-year-old Holocaust survivor is on the verge of power. Mr Lapid suddenly finds himself propelled with Shinui out of obscurity and into the limelight. From a fringe party two elections ago, it now looks likely to become the third biggest party in the Knesset. The party, whose name means Change, won between 14 and 17 of 120 seats, according to exit and telephone polls. "The public has said 'enough' of what has been. It wants a different Israel," Mr Lapid told wildly cheering supporters after the television projections were announced.

With Ariel Sharon facing a troubled road ahead as he tried to form a broad-based coalition that will give him the backing to do what he wants, that means Mr Lapid could force his way into Mr Sharon's government on his terms.

Depending on the make-up of a coalition, Shinui backing could mean Mr Sharon would not have to rely on the hard right, which will tie his hands by opposing the Palestinian state that President George Bush has called for. But Shinui's success came entirely from Mr Lapid's virulent campaign against the disproportionate influence enjoyed by ultra- Orthodox Jews in Israel, which appealed to the long-silent secular majority. It will be lost on no one here that the party Shinui looks likely to supplant as the third biggest in the Knesset is the ultra-Orthodox Shas.

Mr Lapid's terms for joining the government will include an end to the exemption from compulsory military service that many ultra-Orthodox young men enjoy, and an end to the ban on public transport on the Jewish Sabbath, and on the national airline El Al flying then. Above all, Mr Lapid is insisting that he will not join any coalition that includes an ultra-Orthodox party.