Kadima would win election even without Sharon: poll

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's centrist Kadima party would easily win a March 28 general election even without the incapacitated leader at its helm, two newspaper polls published on Friday showed.

The polls were the first to test the political waters for Sharon's newly formed Kadima party since the prime minister suffered a severe cerebral hemorrhage on Wednesday night and was said by doctors to be unlikely to return to public life.

A poll published in the Haaretz daily found that Kadima led by Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would win 40 seats in the 120-member parliament, well ahead of the right-wing Likud party and the centre-left Labor Party.

Labor and Likud would win 18 and 13 seats respectively, the survey said. It noted that respondents' support for Kadima might have been influenced by a sympathy vote over Sharon's illness.

The Yedioth Ahronoth daily published similar results in its poll. It found that Kadima under Olmert would win 39 seats, but would win 42 if led by veteran Israeli statesman Shimon Peres who recently left Labor for Kadima.

Kadima had been seen as a vehicle for Sharon who left Likud in November to form the centrist party, saying he no longer wanted to have his hands tied in pursuing his diplomatic strategy for ending conflict with the Palestinians.

What, are there hundreds of other parties to get the rest of the seats?

Kadima - 40
Labor - 18
Likud - 13

That's 71, leaving 49 seats left in the 120-seat body. Assuming they were giving the top three, and that there are no ties, that means there are at least 5 other parties, picking up 12, 11, 10, 9, and 5 seats. More likely any other group wouldn't be within 2 or 3 of likud or they'd be mentioned -- which means there must be at least 7 or 8 other groups, and if some pick up only a seat or two there could be 20 or more.

Wow. Awful confusing, those parlimentary multi-party systems....

I don't think this means anything. It's one thing to ask if people would vote for Kadima without Sharon, but if they have to vote for Peretz or some other person they are familiar with, that will change the whole picture.

Also, there's the element of respect. No one wants to seem to repudiate Sharon in the present circumstances. Which could, I'm afraid, work against Netanyahu, who might be perceived as Sharon's rival. It's hard to fight against a dying hero or a dead hero.

What, are there hundreds of other parties to get the rest of the seats?

There are literally dozens of political parties in Israel. Candidates do not run in separate districts; rather, voters vote for a party, and each party gets a number of seats proportional to its percentage of the vote.

In addition to the parties listed, there are a number of far left parties (Meretz being the largest), and a slew of religious parties (Shas, United Torah Judaism, National religious Party, etc.).

Kadima should be smothered in its crib.

If Americans don't understand what it is, imagine this example.

Suppose all the polls say that John McCain is certain to be elected by a huge margin no matter what.

McCain decides that he is tired of the Republican platform and many Republican views. He is also not a Democrat.

So he will form a new party around only one certainty- that he will be elected big.

Then he invites anyone to join promising their party will win.

So Ted Keneddy joins hoping to be VP

Tom Delay joins hoping to be Sec of State.

Chuck Schumer joins hoping to be SOD.

Mike Pense joins hoping for a great Ambassadorship.

Nancy Pelosi joins.

Howard Dean joins

Ken Mellman joins.

Dick Cheney joins.

All for power.

Principles mean nothing.

Left and Right forming a "Centrist" party.

The Media and "the people" are ecstatic. No more partisan fighting. Now things will get done.

What are the party view of the issues? Who cares. They'll wing it.

Would anyone here support such a Party.

That's Kadima.

I just checked Wikipedia, and there is not too much on him there:

In matters concerning relations with the Palestinians and the Arab world, Peretz holds doveish positions. He was an early member of the Peace Now movement. He was also, in the 1980's, a member of a group of eight Labour party Knesset members, dubbed "the Eight" and led by Yossi Beilin, who tried to set a liberal agenda for the party in matters concerning the peace process with the Palestinians. Peretz connects between the peace process and internal Israeli social issues. He believes that the unresolved conflict with the Palestinians has also been a hindrance to the solution of some of Israel's most pressing social ills, such as rising inequality. He sees the resources poured on the settlements in the West Bank as having diverted funds that could have helped to solve these problems. He has described the conflict as having mutated Israeli politics, so that the traditional left-right distinctions do not hold: Instead of supporting a social-democratic left which would progress their cause, the lower classes, mostly of Middle Eastern Jewish origins, were diverted to the right by the fanning of nationalist tendencies. Concurrently the left in Israel was usurped by the well-to-do, so that the Labour party had ironically become elitist. That is why Peretz sees an intrinsic connection between a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the resolving of Israel's internal social tensions

I hear many people are expecting a Kadima-Labour coalition government.

Paradoxically, perhaps, the Palistinian terrorists might yet decide it otherwise... If they manage to wreck havock before the elections, Likud might benefit.

It is a bit of a mess at the moment, but I have faith that the Israelis will come trough no matter what.

So he's complaining that ordinary Israelis are too much like ordinary Americans. They refuse to lie down and be a good leftists like the "people" are supposed to be?

These "little guys" are mistakenly conservative. If he could just make peace with the Palestinians, then the rednecks in the Israeli equivalent of red states would turn into good little proletarians.

Yes, he's a leftist peacenik, all right.

There aren't hundreds of parties, but there are about two dozen, twelve of which are in the present Knesset, not counting the various Arab parties. I think there are four of those with seats.

Other parties or combined lists which will get mandates in the next election:

religious:

Shas
United Torah Judaism
Madal (National Religious Party)

hard right:

National Union
Yisrael Beitanu

centrist/secularist:

Shinui:

hard left:

Meretz/Yahad

That is a minimum. Some polls now show Ale Yarok (Green Leaf), the marijuana legalization party, capturing two seats for the first time.

Doesn't Kadima stand for abandoning heavily Arab areas and remote settlements, and finishing the wall taking in large Jewish settlements on the West Bank near the line and around Jerusalem, in a unilateral "resolution." If so, count me in. That has been my point of view for six years now, or more. To me it is the only realistic course. There is no other reasonable alternative, and none has been aduced that I know of.

Sorry Torie. You know I respect you as a level headed person but you are very wrong.

Kadima, now particularly, doesn't stand for anything but vaguely continuing on Sharon's path. But what was Sharon's path?

Sharon has specifically denied just recently that he would do in the "West Bank" what he did in Gaza.

http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/61093.htm

Now you and I both know that he also denied he would do so in Gaza pre-election and lied. And likely was lying again.

But the bottom line is that he dared not go to the electorate with promises for more surrender.

Olmert doesn't have balls anywhere near Sharon's size. Even if he wins at the head of Kadima and attempts anything similar to Sharon's surrender it will go nowhere.

Peres, a man despised by many Israelis is in Kadima and sees a resurrection to his ambitions. He sits in the same party with folks who were Rightists and hated him just recently as an appeasing fool who has bought Israel great misery.

Would you feel safe if American foreign policy was a collaboration between Howard Dean and Dick Cheney? Would such a policy make any sense? Kadima is a mess. It has no reason for being except the aggrandizement of its members.

As to your belief in withdrawal.

The US went more then half way around the World to uproot the Taliban. Gaza, inches away from Israel, is 1000 times more dangerous to Israel then Afghanistan was to the US.

You think Israel can retreat behind walls? The rockets falling on Israel almost daily mind no walls.

One of these days, one of these rockets will hit an unfortunate target. Many will die. Israel will be forced to re-enter Gaza. Over and over. Again and again.

Well, there is no perfect solution. The Arabs are not going to be deported. But perhaps it would be useful to separate the issue of settlements from security. If we do that, then the issue is whether the Israeli military should stay on the Israel side of the wall, with periodic incursions, or on the other side of the wall to nip rocketry in the bud. That is the military decision. I also think both Gaza and the West Bank should remain sealed, until such time as the Palestinians can maintain law and order.

One other thought. There is something to be said for Hamas winning the elections. Then they will be responsible for maintianing law and order, and maintaining discipline in their ranks, and if they do not, or renounce doing so, then the ball is entirely in the Hamas court, with US and other international sources of pressure entirely on them.

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