Neither Peres nor Rivlin

Shimon Peres, the man who didn't want to compete for the presidency but did so because his colleagues exerted pressure on him, arrived at a meeting with Meretz faction members a few weeks ago in a bid to persuade them to back his candidacy.

The eternal contender arrived with an enticing offer: You give me your votes, and I as president will give you Marwan Barghouti (jailed Tanzim leader currently serving five life sentences in Israel for murder and attempted murder.) If and when a request to pardon him is placed on my desk - I will sign it.

Peres is familiar with this party - aversion to corruption is not its primary concern, for the sake of peace, of course. Although Peres' associates say that the proposal was raised by members of Meretz, and all that Peres said was that if a request came from the Justice Ministry, he would not stop it, he repeated the same assurance in a private talk with Knesset Member Zahava Gal-On, known to be a supporter of Colette Avital.

The words written here are not aimed at condemning the possibility of granting a pardon in two years time to someone who may one day be able to unite the Palestinians and lead them to a real peace agreement. Barghouti, according to those who have met with him, is indeed capable of realizing the idea of two states for two peoples. He has both the will and the ability to put a stop to the bloodshed.

Yet to turn him into a bargaining chip and secret weapon in the race for the presidency? To use him to concoct a give-and-take deal, which on the face of it seems corrupt? This is an inappropriate act, to say the least, and it raises the notion that our Peres, should he be elected heaven forbid, will take further steps: He may, for example, try to grant pardon to persons affiliated to members of the government involved in serious criminal allegations. He has no shame in this matter.

Not a man of compassion

Peres is undeserving of this prestigious post, also but perhaps more so due to the following: He does not represent the people. He is not a man who has compassion and sensitivity for members of the lower socioeconomic strata. He does not serve as the flag-bearer and mouthpiece of the weak. He represents the satiated strata, the jetsetters who spend weeks at a time overseas. That's where his true home is.

Peres has another problem: The rule of law bothers him. He strives to be above it. That's how he ousted Attorney General Yitzhak Zamir at the time, when the latter insisted on convicting the key figures involved in the Bus 300 Affair (the killing of two Palestinian bus hijackers by the Shin Bet after they had been taken into custody).

Peres was summoned to protect the criminals and the Shin Bet's culture of lies, he rejected Zamir's arguments and explanations with contempt and to this very day he still does not grasp the severity of his actions. To this day he has also failed to express regret over the "stinking maneuver" in 1990, when he tried to take over the government from Yitzhak Shamir.

Under such circumstances there is no reason to elect Peres for the presidency, certainly not after the misdemeanors of presidents Ezer Weitzman and Moshe Katsav. He is not a man with clean hands or with the power to create a revolution at the presidential residence.

Dubious friends

Similar things can be said of his competitor Reuven Rivlin as well - the friend of police targets. A person seeking to become a public figure representing the entire nation cannot fight the law enforcement establishment and the Supreme Court. In a country where the majority of the people are not corrupt, this is inconceivable.

For the sake of propriety I will mention the bill initiated by Rivlin - The Deri Law, which called for the release of prisoners after serving only half of their prison sentence; the allegations of disruption of justice when Rivlin transferred confidential information from the Knesset pertaining to allegations of sexual harassment against Yitzhak Mordechai to David Appel which, as was expected, was then transferred to Mordechai; and his ties with those appearing on the police's list of 11 (reputed top mobsters published in the 1970s); and contractor Betzalel Mizrahi - who the court ruled was allegedly involved in concocting a heroin deal. Rivlin has still not severed his ties with this dear friend of his.

Rivlin should also be disqualified for the post because of another scandal revealed in the media two months ago: He exerted heavy pressure in Israel and abroad in favor of the crook Eli Tisona, who was convicted in the US for laundering the money of a Columbian money cartel and sentenced to 19 years imprisonment. Rivlin is very close to his brother, Yossi Tisona from the Likud central committee, and he went to great lengths to secure a pardon for the dangerous crook, or at least the possibility of serving his sentence in Israel.

With this business card, Rivlin is seeking the presidential chair and asking us to transform him into an exemplary figure.

Who under these circumstances has remained the only appropriate and "clean" candidate? Colette Avital: An experienced diplomat who fought on behalf of Holocaust survivors for seven years. She didn't get her hands dirty, and no real stain has stuck to her.