JERUSALEM // The Israeli prime minister-designate Tzipi Livni's Kadima Party initialed a partial agreement yesterday on bringing the Labor Party into a new governing coalition. But several issues remained to be settled before a formal pact, a Labor official said. Ms Livni will also need to attract support from smaller parties to form a new government to replace the one headed by the former Kadima leader Ehud Olmert, who resigned as prime minister under the cloud of a corruption investigation.
If Ms Livni fails to put together a coalition in the coming weeks, early elections would have to be called, further disrupting Israel's peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Lior Avnon, a spokeswoman for Labor, said her party's leader, the defence minister Ehud Barak, and Ms Livni would try to produce a final agreement at a meeting this evening. Ms Avnon said the remaining disagreements concerned pensions and the appointment of judges, among other things. Labor would be Kadima's key partner in any coalition and a deal would make it easier for Ms Livni to bring in the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party and reach a majority in parliament.
*AP
