Israelis look to "Mrs Clean" after age of scandal

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - As Prime Minister Ehud Olmert bows out under a cloud of corruption allegations, Israelis hope his successor Tzipi Livni can live up to the "Mrs. Clean" label her supporters have given the new leader of the ruling party.

"Livni's victory did not stem from a feat of organization or from political alliances," columnist Nahum Barnea wrote when she was elected this week to succeed Olmert as Kadima party leader.

"It stemmed from the public's general longing for new, fresh and mostly clean leadership," the influential Barnea wrote in the country's best-selling newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

Olmert's accusers have painted vivid tales of him accepting envelopes stuffed with cash in hotel rooms from an American businessman and of filing multiple claims for the same expenses -- he now faces indictment despite his denial of any wrongdoing.

But most worrying for many Israelis is that he is by no means the only politician to face such accusations. His three predecessors, both left and right, were targeted by inquiries.

A son of Kadima party founder Ariel Sharon, whose stroke in 2006 propelled Olmert into the prime minister's office, was jailed this year over funding for his father's political career.

While Olmert and others complain of politically motivated investigators and fuzzy campaign financing rules, some Israelis say corruption threatens the very foundations of their state.

At the Israel branch of the worldwide anti-corruption group Transparency International, chief executive Galia Sagy told Reuters: "We hope she will bring change to the public agenda and introduce a different kind of politics, as she has said in the past, and restore the voters' trust in the leadership."

"OUTRAGE"

Foreign minister Livni, a 50-year-old commercial lawyer and daughter of a prominent Zionist fighter from the days of Israel's creation in the 1940s, has tried to present herself as carrying a banner of integrity during her decade in politics.

"It outrages me, the attempt to claim that it is a matter of norms that everyone who enters politics needs to adopt," she said in May after Olmert's cash donations first came to light.

While campaigning this week to lead the Kadima party, she presented her candidacy to its members as a chance to put such scandals behind them: "This is a second chance to shape Israel's image, to fix the damage and to place the good of the country and its people at the centre," she said.

Olmert plans to resign as premier once Livni has formed a new government coalition, a process that may take some weeks.

Livni is no stranger to the close personal ties that often exist in a small country between the business and political elite. She is married to a prominent advertising entrepreneur.

But she has made a point of insisting politics must be clean. Four years ago, she was awarded an annual honor by the Movement for Quality Government, an anti-corruption lobby.

On the eve of her victory, 33-year-old supporter Omer Azolai, wearing a Livni T-shirt, emphasized her 'Mrs. Clean' image: "She comes with clean hands and she knows how to lead," he said. "She will make Kadima a successful party."

(Additional reporting by Avida Landau, Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Mariam Karouny)