Israel's Livni, a tough contender

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Tzipi Livni might just be able to frown her way to power in Israel.

Dubbed "Mrs Clean" by one Israeli newspaper columnist, the usually dour foreign minister is widely seen as the antithesis of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a glad-handing veteran politician embroiled in a corruption scandal forcing him from office.

Political analysts have described Livni's publicly glum demeanor as a welcome contrast to Olmert, an asset in her race to succeed him in a Kadima party leadership vote on September 17.

Even a recent incident, famously captured on Israeli television, in which she snapped at two children bringing her sweet cakes during a campaign stop, appears to have done little to sour public opinion against her.

"Please stop. It's disturbing me," scolded Livni, a 50-year-old mother of two, as she paused for a moment in her survey of security issues. The youngsters scurried away.

Livni came to politics just over a decade ago, following a stint in the Mossad intelligence service -- as a legal adviser, some say, while others speculate that she helped hunt Arab enemies abroad -- and then a career as a corporate attorney.

In 2006, she became Israel's second woman foreign minister. The first was Golda Meir who later served as prime minister from 1969 to 1974.

Livni's private life has remained out of the headlines. Few Israelis can name her husband, businessman Naftali Spitzer.

FALLING OUT

Livni first had a public falling out with Olmert more than a year ago, calling for his resignation after a commission roundly criticized his handling of the 2006 war against Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas.

He refused, yet Livni stayed in the government in an uneasy partnership with him. As Olmert's deputy, she sits at his side at the cabinet table and serves as his chief negotiator in peace talks with the Palestinians.

As the Olmert corruption scandal deepened in recent months, Livni has hammered home a message that "values and norms" must be upheld in Israeli politics and geared up for the Kadima race pitting her against former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz.

Mofaz has highlighted his security experience, Livni's own role in the Lebanon debacle. But like Olmert and right-wing Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, Livni hails from hard Zionist stock that bolsters her credentials with many voters.

Her father, Eitan, led an armed underground in the 1940s that fought for Jewish control of all Palestine rather than partitioning the then British-ruled territory with Arabs.

Livni renounced any such views after joining Ariel Sharon's cabinet in 2001.