After stroke, Sharon says his party is still moving forward

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a mild stroke, but his condition quickly improved, his doctors said. Aides said he was expected...

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a mild stroke, but his condition quickly improved, his doctors said. Aides said he was expected to be hospitalised for a few days and he still was in control of the government.

Sharon was talking and joking with his family hours after he arrived in the hospital yesterday, doctors said. He was treated with blood thinners and suffered no damage from the stroke, said Boleslaw Goldman, Sharon’s personal doctor. ‘‘He’s lucid, he’s fully functional,’’ said Sharon aide Raanan Gissin.

Sharon, 77 and very overweight, has been a political fixture of Israeli politics for more than three decades. ‘‘Apparently I should have taken a few days off for vacation. But we’re continuing to move forward,’’ he said, making a play on the name of his party, Kadima, which means forward.

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His illness came a little more than three months before he was to lead his new Kadima party into national elections, and could hamper his efforts to finish building the nascent centrist faction, which has a lead in the polls.

This could have made a major campaign issue, but it would have little effect on Israeli policy or peace efforts, since no major decisions were expected during the campaign.

In Gaza, however, armed men from the Popular Resistance Committees fired guns in the air, screamed ‘‘Sharon is dead’’ and handed out pastries to motorists on the streets of Gaza City in celebration of the news that Sharon was ill.

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