January 11, 2003	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 7, 1423

AL QUDS: An Israeli judge pulled the plug on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon mid-way through an angry and rambling television address on Wednes-day night which was meant to deny corruption allegations and win back voters who are fleeing his party in droves.

With opinion polls showing a rapid collapse in public trust and his rightwing bloc perilously close to losing its majority in this month’s general election, Mr Sharon was forced to make a public statement about US dollars 1.5m given to his family last year by a British businessman.

Before the address, commentators agreed that Mr Sharon is “no longer the Teflon prime minister” and that he needed a masterful performance to regain public trust. But after about 20 minutes of avoiding specifics in favour of vitriolic denunciations of his opponents whom he accused of “despicable slander ...with one purpose, to bring down the government of Israel”, he was abruptly taken off the air for violating another law.

Israel’s election commission obtained a court order because Mr Sharon’s speech amounted to “electioneering” which is illegal on television. Mr Sharon failed to explain convincingly the circumstances of the US dollars 1.5m loan.

The broadcast may even have fuelled the decline of Likud which has lost about one-third of its backing over the past month, according to the latest polls. In addition, 31 per cent of voters said they no longer believe Mr Sharon is fit to be prime minister. Supporters of the prime minister’s arch-rival for the Likud leadership, the foreign minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, are already beginning to agitate for his resignation.

The fraud squad is investigating whether the loan to one of Mr Sharon’s sons from Cyril Kern, a wealthy former textile manufacturer in Cape Town, was indirectly used to repay illegal campaign funds.

Last night the prime minister told the Israeli public he had been “horrified” to learn of the original illegal campaign funds even though the front company used to launder the funds was set up by his then lawyer, Dov Weisglass, who now heads the prime minister’s office.

He said he did not know where the money came from to repay the campaign funds after the state comptroller concluded they were illegal. The fraud squad alleges that the prime minister told the police and state comptroller that the money came from a mortgage on his ranch. But his bank had turned down the mortgage because Mr Sharon does not own the ranch.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.