Likud faces election slide after Sharon: poll

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s ruling Likud party, which
has dominated Israeli politics for much of the past three
decades, will sink to its weakest level in March’s general
election, an opinion poll showed on Wednesday.

The poll in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper predicted
victory in a March 28 election for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
who quit the rightist Likud last week to form a centrist party
he says will be better able to end conflict with the
Palestinians.

In line with other recent surveys showing Likud’s likely
decline, the poll found that Likud would win only 10 seats in
the 120-seat parliament, down from 40.

Sharon’s new Kadima party would win 34 seats, positioning
itself to form the next coalition government, the poll
predicted.

The center-left Labor Party and its new chief, trade union
leader Amir Peretz, would come in second, winning 27
parliamentary seats, up from 21, the poll found.

In a gamble that has reshaped Israeli politics, Sharon
announced his departure from Likud last week, saying he could
not push for peace with the Palestinians while “wasting time”
battling far-right rivals in the movement he co-founded in
1973.

Sharon pushed through a withdrawal from Gaza in September
in the face of stiff opposition within Likud. But he has
pledged to keep major settlement blocs in the occupied West
Bank, a prospect Palestinians said would deny them a viable
state.

The latest survey was conducted before reports surfaced
that Labor elder statesman Shimon Peres, stunned by his defeat
by Peretz, had decided to leave Labor to back Sharon in the
general election.

The poll, which questioned 500 respondents, had a margin of
error of 4 percent.