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Likud faces election slide after Sharon: poll

Posted on: Wednesday, 30 November 2005, 10:47 CST

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.

Source: REUTERS

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