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