Shinui, a linchpin of Mr Sharon's governments between 2001 and 2006, has since disappeared as swiftly as it arose.

ECONOMIST: Israeli politics

But Labour's leader, Amram Mitzna, says he will not join, and the centrist Shinui party, which came third, will not share power with an ultra-Orthodox party.

ECONOMIST: Disarming arguments

Yair Lapid, a longtime prominent journalist whose late father, Tommy Lapid, led Shinui, a onetime secularist party that took on the influence and power of the ultra-Orthodox.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

But centrist parties like Shinui and Yesh Atid in Israel have had a longevity problem, something that was also seen with the Kadima experiment that faded after Ariel Sharon.

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Yesh Atid's leader is a dynamic figure -- Yair Lapid, a longtime prominent journalist whose late father, Tommy Lapid, led Shinui, a onetime secularist party that took on the influence and power of the ultra-Orthodox.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

This shift had been preceded in the late 1990s by the rise of two new parties: Shinui, an anti-clerical outfit founded by Tommy Lapid, and Yisrael Beitenu, a far-right party, backed mainly by Russian immigrants, led by Avigdor Lieberman.

ECONOMIST: Israeli politics