THE Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, and the leader of the right wing opposition Likud party, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, agreed yesterday to hold an early general election on May 28th.
Mr Netanyahu said after a meeting at the prime minister's office that Likud and Mr Peres's Labour Party still had to approve the election date, which must then be formally adopted by a Knesset vote.
In addition to choosing a new Knesset, voters will for the first time be called on to directly elect the prime minister, with Mr Peres and Mr Netanyahu the main candidates.
On Sunday, Mr Peres announced his decision to bring the elections forward from October 29th. He defended his decision by saying the government wanted a renewed mandate to pursue difficult peace negotiations with Syria and the Palestinians.
In the Knesset yesterday, Mr Peres asked for a dissolution and early elections. Before he met Mr Netanyahu, Mr Peres said he preferred May 21st but added that he would try to accommodate the opposition.
Mr Peres (72) wants an election as quickly as possible to catch the ebbing tide of sympathy from the November assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
Opinion polls put Mr Peres 22 points ahead of Mr Netanyahu who is still trying to shake off the charge of moral complicity in the assassination. The entire right wing was accused of creating the climate of violence that led the extremist Orthodox Jew, Mr Yigal Amir, to shoot Mr Rabin to stop peace deals with the Palestinians.
Mr Peres's lead is narrowing, and now that a breakthrough with Syria before the summer seems remote he wants a snap poll, although Israeli law insists on a minimum 90 day campaign. A long campaign would also increase Mr Peres's exposure to attacks on Israelis by Islamic opponents of his peace partner the PLO.
Mr Peres sketched out the main issues of his campaign - concluding peace with the Palestinians, a treaty with Syria, Israeli security, and an improved economy. But he left little doubt that his campaign would be built on Mr Rabin, whose name he invoked 10 times.
Mr Rabin's widow, Mrs Leah Rabin, joined the fray yesterday saying her husband's memory would ensure a Labour victory although she ruled out a political role for herself.
"I think that his memory and accomplishments are strong enough to lead the Labour Party to a crushing victory in these elections and they don't need me," she told Israel Radio.
However, Likud said Mr Rabin's death should be above politics. It pained me to hear the prime minister begin his address with a detailed and long reference to the difficult moments of the assassination," said one Likud member of the Knesset, Mr Moshe Katzav.
However, Mrs Rabin said she feared the opposition would try to discredit her husband in the campaign, and she rejected criticism from Likud members that Labour was making cynical use of the killing.
She added: "I want to quote the beautiful words of [Israeli author] Meir Shalev at the 30 day memorial for Yitzhak. He said: `We will not forget who murdered, who was murdered, and also will not forgive'."