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An election campaign poster for Kadima.
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| By Associated Press January 22, 2006 |
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The centrist Kadima party retains a commanding lead ahead of March 28 elections, despite new gains by the dovish Labor party, according to two opinion polls published Friday.
A survey published in the Maariv daily predicted Kadima would win 43 seats, unchanged from week-earlier results, while a poll conducted for Channel 10 TV and the Haaretz daily showed Kadima sliding to 41 seats from 44 the previous week.
Either result would put Kadima in a commanding position to lead the next coalition government in the 120-seat parliament.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon quit the hard-line Likud party in November and formed Kadima to give himself more flexibility to pursue a final settlement with the Palestinians. Likud members bitterly contested Sharon's pullout from the Gaza Strip last summer and promised stiff opposition to further territorial concessions.
After Sharon suffered a debilitating stroke on Jan. 4, analysts predicted Kadima might suffer in the polls. But under the acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, the party has retained its standing with the public, putting him in a strong position to succeed Sharon permanently.
Olmert said this week he hopes to restart peace talks after the Palestinian and Israeli elections. But with the Islamic militant group Hamas poised to do well in the Palestinian vote, there has been widespread speculation that Israel might proceed with further unilateral withdrawals from Judea and Samaria. Hamas says it opposes peace talks.
Friday's Maariv poll showed 51 percent of the Israel public favors more unilateral withdrawals, with 49 percent opposed.
Avi Dichter, a senior Kadima official, was quoted as saying Friday that Israel is in no rush for unilateral action. Dichter, who recently retired as head of the Shin Bet security agency, said Israel's preference is to reach a negotiated solution based on the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan.
"We are not in a hurry. We're not going to try to end the problem without solving it," he told the Jerusalem Post. "We're not going to withdraw from the West Bank unilaterally just because it was done in Gaza."
The new polls both showed gains for Labor. The dovish party, which has steadily slid in opinion polls since union boss Amir Peretz was chosen leader in November, appeared to get a boost from party primaries this week.
Primary voters placed a number of new faces into prominent positions on the party's list of candidates, with longtime leaders pushed further down. The party, whose agenda is focused on social issues, is widely expected to join a Kadima-led government.
Labor would win 19 seats, up from 16 the previous week, according to the Haaretz poll, while the Maariv survey showed Labor rising to 20 seats from 17.
Likud, led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, rose to 17 seats in the Haaretz poll, up from 13. But the Maariv poll showed the party slipping to 14 seats from 16 the previous week.
The Maariv poll, conducted by the Teleseker agency, surveyed 552 people and had a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points. The Haaretz poll, conducted by the Dialog agency, surveyed 625 people. It did not give a margin of error.
The AP contributed to this report.
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