Profile: Tzipi Livni

Tzipi Livni, who currently serves as foreign minister and vice prime minster, has long been Ehud Olmert’s principal rival inside the Kadima party. The 50-year old politician has few ideological differences with her party boss, but the two clashed sharply over Mr Olmert’s refusal to resign in the wake of Israel’s botched war in Lebanon in 2006. Ms Livni, a former operative for the Mossad, Israel’s secret service, publicly called on the prime minister to step down last year, but the two ended up patching up their differences and she remained in office. In November last year, Mr Olmert appointed her to lead the peace talks with the Palestinian Authority – a task that has given Ms Livni a high profile internationally but that has yielded few results so far. She hails from an ultra-nationalist family, but is now seen as one of the chief proponents of a peace deal with the Palestinians in order to safeguard the Jewish state. Like Mr Olmert, she lacks military experience, but is widely seen by the Israeli public as a untainted by corruption allegations. In the current political environment, that is a crucial asset.