Israel's Prime Minister-elect, Mr Ehud Barak, has yet to begin negotiations on forming a governing coalition, and already he is coming under immense pressure over which parties to include in his government.
Having unseated Mr Benjamin Netanyahu by 56 to 44 per cent in Monday's direct elections for prime minister, Mr Barak has 45 days by law to weld together a majority coalition in the splintered 120-seat Knesset, which was also elected on Monday. Mr Barak's own One Israel party, the foundation of his coalition, gained only 26 seats in the House, with the remainder divided among 14 other parties.
Mr Barak's natural coalition allies are the left-of-centre Meretz and Shinui parties, which together won 16 seats. But leaders of both of these parties are refusing to join the coalition if Mr Barak also brings in Shas, the ultra-Orthodox party that soared from 10 seats in the outgoing Knesset to 17 this time.
Shas is led by Mr Aryeh Deri, who was convicted in March of taking bribes when serving as minister of the interior in the 1980s, and who is now preparing to appeal a four-year jail term.
Mr Deri, who claims he and all Jews of north African origin are being "persecuted" by the Israeli "establishment", and who based the Shas election campaign on his rabbi's pronouncement of his innocence, has now formally resigned from the Knesset, and has pledged to retire from politics, but continues to serve as Shas's chairman.
At an election victory meeting yesterday, Mr Barak was urged by many of One Israel's Knesset members to exclude Shas from the coalition, but made no commitment to do so. He did say, however, that he would not negotiate with Shas so long as Mr Deri pulled the party strings.
Mr Barak is also said to be contemplating inviting the Likud into government with him, to ensure wide public support, even at the cost of complicating peace moves. The Palestinians are watching Mr Barak's tentative coalition-building signals with some alarm, and would be horrified to see Mr Ariel Sharon, foreign minister in the outgoing government, and now Likud's temporary leader, returned to a position of influence.
To emphasise their demand for quick progress, and their concern that Mr Barak might be tempted to place peace with Syria and Lebanon at the top of his agenda, Palestinian leaders are talking again of plans to declare independent statehood, perhaps by the end of the year.
In an interview yesterday, Mr Barak said that the notion of relinquishing biblical land in the West Bank "rips me apart", but that he would be prepared "to make the hard decisions".
Reports in the Hebrew press yesterday suggested that Mr Barak intends to accelerate peace efforts on all fronts. One report claimed he has a five-stage plan of action for Syria and Lebanon, designed to bring Israeli troops out of Lebanon within a year, within the framework of talks with Syria on a peace deal that would include the return of land on the captured Golan Heights.