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Peres keeps options open after meeting with Olmert |
| By: Israel Insider staff and partners |
| Published: March 15, 2006 |
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Two weeks before Israel's election, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima Party holds a large lead, but a significant number of undecided voters is giving hope to his hawkish opponents that they can block him.
Olmert breathed life into a sleepy campaign over the weekend when he spelled out his plans for Judea and Samaria - saying he would withdraw from significant parts and move settlers from outlying locations into settlement blocs Israel would keep. He said he preferred peace negotiations, but with Hamas in control of the Palestinian government, he was prepared to move unilaterally.
Polls show Kadima winning about 36 seats in the 120-seat parliament in the March 28 election, with the moderate Labor second with about 19 seats and the hawkish Likud trailing with about 17.
But the polls show up to a quarter of the voters have yet to make up their minds. Coupled with predictions that voter turnout may be relatively low for Israel, hawkish candidates are taking heart.
Israel's governments are always coalitions, and the hard-line parties are hoping to garner enough seats to block Olmert from forming a majority government.
Analysts said that with his detailed plan, Olmert was trying to shore up support, which has been dropping slightly in recent weeks. But hawkish parties said his pronouncements would backfire, and on election day, voters who oppose giving up further territory without something in return from the Palestinians would turn out in great numbers to punish Olmert.
A survey of 605 respondents published Thursday by Haaretz newspaper and Channel 10 TV estimated the number of as yet undecided voters as being worth 24 parliamentary seats, meaning the final shape of Israel's next government and the direction of Mideast peacemaking efforts still hangs in the balance.
Pollsters say they have formulas to apportion the floating voters among the parties, but polls here have been wrong several times in recent years.
"No one thinks that there will be a situation in which another party will surpass Kadima, but there is some chance that a few things could happen that will cause the right-wing bloc to be sufficiently strong," Haaretz quoted an unnamed Likud official as saying.
Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu has already pledged not to join an Olmert-led government, while Labor is seen as a natural ally of Kadima.
Haaretz cited Labor Party officials as saying that while they had no chance of an outright win, they hoped to pick up sufficient floating votes to make their party a force in a coalition with Kadima.
Veteran Israeli political commentator Hanan Crystal said Olmert might get the support of some middle-of-the-road Jewish religious parties in the beginning, while he went through the motions of trying to negotiate a peace settlement with a Palestinian government dominated by the militant Islamic Hamas, which was victorious in January Palestinian elections.
Those allies, however, would jump ship when Olmert moved inevitably to unilateral withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, Crystal said.
"Who can go along for the whole process?" Crystal asked, and replied, "The Labor Party. These two parties talk the same."
But he said the final outcome was still too close to call.
AP contributed to this report. |
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