Special Report: Israel's general elections

    JERUSALEM, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Gil Pensioners Party became the first to sign a coalition agreement with Israel's centrist Kadima party headed by Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday afternoon.

    Gil Chairman Rafi Eitan will be appointed to the post of pensioners' minister, while number two on Gil's list, Yaakov Ben-Yizri, will be given the health ministry portfolio.

    The agreement has made Kadima and Gil Pensioners Party a single parliamentary bloc and the two will remain nominally independent but will hold joint meetings, local newspaper Ha'aretz reported.

    Olmert could now say "I have (the support of) 36 members of the Knesset (Parliament)", a Gil official was quoted as saying after the agreement was inked.

    Kadima occupies 29 seats in the 120-seat Knesset and Gil has seven.

    Meanwhile, marathon talks between the center-left Labor party, which is the second largest party in the parliament with 19 seats, and Kadima continued into late Tuesday night without reaching an agreement.

    Labor has informed Kadima officials that Labor would not object to Kadima signing a coalition agreement with Gil in order to move the coalition process forward.

    Olmert has said that he intends to present a 27-minister cabinet, the largest in Israel's history.

    In addition, Kadima has been contacting the ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party and the religious Shas party over coalition partnership.

    Olmert, whose Kadima party won the most seats in the March general elections, was formally tasked on April 6 by Israeli President Moshe Katsav to form a new coalition government.

    Thence, Olmert was given 28 days to try to put together a governing coalition which must command at least 61 seats in the Knesset.

    A two-week extension will be granted if needed. Enditem