 In addition, the situation in which Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced that early elections would be held, just several days after the Labor party left the unity government, caught the Labor party in a situation in which it did not yet receive a chance to elect the head of the party.When it eventually elected Amram Mitzna, he had little more than one month to gather the attention of the Israeli public and convince the Israeli public of his positions—the most prominent among them being his claim that Israel had no interest in continuing to have control in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank.After Barak took a break from politics in late February 2001, the Labor party established a unity government with the Likud party, in which Shimon Peres represented the Labor party as the most senior figure of its ministers.