Populist Lapid predicts a place in government with Labour

The leader of Israel's Shinui Party predicted yesterday that Labour would renege on its promise to stay out of a coalition with the ruling party, Likud, after tomorrow's elections.

Tommy Lapid said this would pave the way for him to assume a ministerial role in the coalition. Mr Lapid has said he will not sit in government with the religious and right-wing parties who would hold the balance of power if Labour withdrew.

Shinui is in third place in the polls. The party stormed up the polls on a promise to curb the influence of ultra-Orthodox Jews and is snapping at Labour's heels.

Mr Lapid, who has expressed an interest in becoming Minister of Justice in the new administration, said he believed the promise by Amram Mitzna, the Labour leader, would be broken. He said Labour would eventually join a secular national unity government, "probably without Mitzna", for two reasons. "One is that Labour is too used to being in government not to take the opportunity," he said.

"And the other is that they are good Israelis and they know the country is more important than the party."

Mr Lapid, 71, badly needs to hold out the prospect of such a coalition if he is to convince waverers that his platform of releasing Israel from the financial and social burdens imposed by the ultra-Orthodox is worth voting for.

Shinui's hopes of replacing Labour as the second party diminished yesterday amid growing speculation that Labour would stick to its guns.

A poll in the daily newspaper Haaretz showed Shinui slipping from a projected 16 to 14 seats in the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

Mr Lapid was speaking after addressing an enthusiastic meeting in Herzliya, a prosperous suburb of Tel Aviv. The audience lapped up his demands for public transport on the sabbath and for state funds to be diverted from ultra-Orthodox Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Yeshivas (religious seminaries) back to the exchequer.

Mr Lapid drew laughs when he told the audience: "We don't make the ultra-religious eat ham; why can't they let us live our own lives?"

His supporters also object to the contrast between university costs for non-orthodox students, which range from £1500 to £3,000 per year, compared with free higher higher education for those atYeshivas.

One former ultra-Orthodox Jew turned Shinui supporter told Mr Lapid, who had complained that a high proportion of the ultra-Orthodox did not work or pay taxes, that many in fact worked in the black economy.

Like Ariel Sharon, Mr Lapid is against negotiations with Yasser Arafat, but insists that to allow talks to wait until violence stops would be to allow "Hamas to hold the key to whether you make progress".

But Mr Lapid does not go anything like as far as Labour on the issue of Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied Territories. Despite his many rants against demagogues, he is quite capable of being one himself. His background is as an outspoken right-winger.

Nor would the British Liberal Democrats, fellow affiliates of Shinui in the Liberal International, approve of some of his more inflammatory rants – very much aimed to appeal to European rather than oriental or North African Jews.

At a another rally he played to the harder line vote on the issue by suggesting that European civilized nations had taken over territories without demur. "Do you think that Gdansk in Poland belong to the Poles?" he asked. " Not at all. It belonged to the Germans and now it belongs to the Poles.

"And did you ever hear anyone protest about it? Don't let them tell you that it's impossible to keep occupied territory. It's most certainly possible."

Before the meeting Ari Erez, who voted for Labour's Ehud Barak in the last election in 2001, said he was supporting Mr Lapid in this election "because he's honest". Mr Erez said that ultra-Orthodox funding should be switched to public education. social security and transport. But Uri Dromi, a pro-Labour analyst at the Israel Democracy Institute predicted that Shinui would fade after the election. Voters had turned to the party because, not trusting Mr Arafat as an interlocutor for peace, they were concentrating on other, lesser, issues which excited them.

Mr Lapid also went to Jersualem this week. In a snub to the city's Orthodox community, he announced "I'm not going to the Haredim. I'm coming to the capital of Israel."

Supporters of Baruch Marzel – who leads an Orthodox party – waited for Mr Lapid, singing "Tommy, Tommy, Marzel will come to power and we'll settle accounts with you".