The vote was the first major political test for acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the likely political heir to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who remained comatose in a Jerusalem hospital after suffering a stroke Jan. 4.

Later in the day, Attorney General Meni Mazuz told Olmert to continue as acting prime minister as long as Sharon is in the hospital, presumably through the March 28 Israeli election, officials said.

The move allowed Mazuz to continue to define Sharon as temporarily, rather than permanently, incapacitated because doctors treating the prime minister at Jerusalem's Hadassah hospital have not yet offered a prognosis.

A declaration of permanent incapacitation, which would require the Cabinet to name a successor to Sharon, would be irreversible.

The Japan Times Weekly: Jan. 21, 2006
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