Former Israeli opposition leader and one-time Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni announced her political comeback Tuesday, telling a news conference in Tel Aviv she was forming a new centrist party to compete in Israel's upcoming January 22 elections, dpa reported.
The new party would be called "The Movement headed by Tzipi Livni," according to an announcement on her Facebook page posted several hours before she addressed reporters.
She said she was determined to fight for "democratic values" and "peace and security."
"There has to be an alternative in Israel's elections," she said, while criticising the outgoing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu and the generally hardline list of candidates for parliament his Likud Party selected in internal elections Sunday and Monday.
Livni did not present her own list of candidates at her news conference. She has until December 6 to do so.
Livni's political comeback, after a seven-month time-out, had been the subject of speculation for weeks. News that she was forming her own centrist party led to accusations, from the heads of two other centrist and centre-left parties, that she was splitting the anti-Netanyahu vote and ruining the chances of ousting him.
She refused entreaties from the leaders of both parties to join forces with them.
Foreign Minister in the centrist Israeli government of 2006 to 2009, Livni took over the leadership of the Kadima party when former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was forced to quit over corruption allegations.
She refused to join the government Netanyahu set up after the 2009 elections, settling instead for the post of leader of the opposition.
But in April this year, a Kadima leadership primary saw her ousted as party leader - and official leader of the opposition. A month later she announced she was retiring from parliament.
The announcement comes a day after another Israeli political heavyweight - Defence Minister Ehud Barak, a former Labour Party leader - announced his upcoming retirement from politics.