Sharon's new centrist movement 'crushing' hard-line Likud
Ariel Sharon’s new party would sweep a March 28 election and crush the hard-line Likud Party he abandoned, allowing the Israeli prime minister to form a coalition with the dovish Labour Party, according to opinion polls published today.
Sharon’s dramatic decision earlier this week to quit the Likud Party he helped found three decades ago rocked Israel’s political establishment, leaving some of his main rivals – including former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – gasping for breath and picking up the pieces of the fractured hard-line movement.
Today’s opinion polls indicate that Israel’s public backs Sharon and his September withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and would support future pullouts and peacemaking.
Hard-line Likud members fought tooth-and-nail against the withdrawal, finally leading Sharon to bolt from the movement, convinced that in a third term he would be unable to advance in the US-backed road map peace plan he is committed to or possibly carry out further settlement evacuations.
The opinion polls and the poor attendance yesterday at the Likud Central Committee’s first meeting since Sharon’s departure – only about 500 of the party’s 3,000 registered committee members attended – show the party that has dominated Israeli politics for three decades could pay a hefty price for sticking to its hawkish policy.
Adding to Likud’s troubles is a rejuvenated Labour Party headed by populist union leader Amir Peretz who has made social and economic issues a hot campaign topic.
But Israel’s political establishment is fluid, and Likud politicians were quick to point out that with four months to the election, it was still to early to place an educated bet on the outcome.
“We are only four days after they (Sharon) tried to split the Likud and squash the Likud,” Education Minister Limor Livnat, a powerful Likud player, told Israel Radio. “We need to recover, and the Likud now is taking all the necessary steps to do so.”
According to three separate opinion polls published today, the Likud has a long way to climb to regain even half of the 40 parliamentary seats it won in the last election.
A Teleseker poll in the Maariv daily had Sharon’s Forward Party winning 34 seats in Israel’s 120-member parliament, four more than he had in a poll published on Tuesday. The dovish Labour Party would win 26 seats, and Likud, if headed by Netanyahu, would win just 13 spots. Today’s poll of 443 Israeli adults has a margin of error of 4.3 percentage points.
In a Dahaf centre poll published in the Yediot Ahronot daily newspaper, Sharon wins 33 seats, compared to Labour’s 26 and Likud’s 13. The poll of 500 Israeli adults has a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.
A third poll, taken Wednesday and published in The Jerusalem Post on today, had Sharon winning 32 seats. Labour would grab between 25 and 26 seats, and Likud – if headed by Netanyahu – would win just 12 or 13 seats. The poll, by Smith Researching and Consulting, surveyed 500 eligible voters and has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.
The Dahaf poll showed Netanyahu would win a December primary for the Likud Party leadership by a wide margin. Netanyahu would win 39 percent of the vote, compared to just 19 per cent for Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz and 12 per cent for Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. The remaining votes would go to three other minor candidates.
“The polls create a platform and a back-wind and show trends,” said leading Israeli political analyst Hanan Crystal. “Sharon is in the lead and it will take enormous change for that to decline.”
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