What Comes Next?

As often happens when damning reports about the government are issued, the substance of the report itself was almost immediately forgotten, and the political upheaval that may follow became the big story of the day. Ehud Olmert's government is facing a huge crisis, and it is not clear if it will be able to survive.

Three possible outcomes can be imagined, since the demand—from both the public and from fellow politicians—that Olmert should resign is getting hard to ignore:

1. Olmert is forced out, the ruling coalition dismantles, and a date for new elections—probably this fall—is set. In the meantime, an interim government, headed by another coalition member—perhaps the tireless Shimon Peres or Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni—is established.
2. Olmert is replaced by someone else from his coalition, without a date for new elections. No one believes such a coalition could survive for very long.
3. Olmert survives as the coalition partners eventually reach the conclusion that they will lose power if new elections are called.

New elections would give Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu a chance to become prime minister again, since he is leading in all polls. However, by the end of May, the Labor Party will also have a new leader (former Prime Minister Ehud Barak is a leading candidate) who might be more effective politically, and there's a big question mark over the future of Kadima—currently the ruling party. Ariel Sharon formed it when he decided to leave Likud; Olmert became its leader when Sharon collapsed; and now Livni is in a position to succeed Olmert. However, there's a good chance that the party doesn't have many voters left and that Livni and her friends would rather look for better alternatives. Some will rejoin Likud, some will join Labor, and most will just go home.