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Olmert's Kadima still leads Israel opinion polls

Posted on: Thursday, 9 March 2006, 01:29 CST

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's centrist Kadima party appears to have consolidated its lead as campaigning for the country's general election swings into high gear, surveys showed on Thursday.

Opinion polls published in three Israeli newspapers indicated Kadima had stabilized its front-running position ahead of the March 28 ballot following a drop in support earlier in the month.

The opinion polls gave Kadima between 37 to 38 seats in the 120-seat parliament, far ahead of the center-left Labor Party and the right-wing Likud party.

The number was lower than the 40 seats the party had been expected to win under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Support for Kadima has slipped slightly since Ehud Olmert took over as interim prime minister after Sharon suffered a crippling stroke on January 4 that left him in a coma.

"The question of who will win the elections has already been decided. The test now is whether we will be strong enough to do what we want and for this we need as many seats as possible," Olmert said at a campaign rally on Wednesday.

Neither Labor nor Likud have shown any sign of gaining momentum ahead of the election. The surveys in the Haaretz daily and mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv newspapers gave between 19 to 20 seats to Labor and 14 to 17 seats to Likud.

But the number of floating voters appeared to be on the rise with 24 seats in parliament still up for grabs, the Haaretz poll found.

Parties stepped up election campaigning this week with television and radio advertisements as politicians seek to court undecided voters.

Source: REUTERS

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