JERUSALEM, March 28: The ruling Kadima party narrowly beat its rivals in Tuesday’s Israeli election and was on course to secure between 29 and 32 of the 120 seats in the next parliament, television exit polls said. A poll for public television said the party of acting premier Ehud Olmert would secure 29 seats while private television said it would get 32.
The public television survey also forecast that the centre-left Labour party was on course to win 22 of the seats against 14 for the far-right party Yisrael Beitenu and only 11 for the Likud party of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
If confirmed, the figures would be a major setback for Kadima, whose campaign team has already said that anything below 35 would be a disappointment and will complicate his efforts to steer through his plan to fix Israel’s final borders.
Acting premier Ehud Olmert has made the election a de facto referendum on his plan to separate Israelis from Palestinians, declaring the peace process dead in the water with an incoming Hamas-led Palestinian government.
He urged the five-million strong electorate to turn out en masse after a dull campaign that has failed to inspire the country despite the weighty issues at stake.
“Go and vote and may this be a beautiful day for the people of Israel,” he said as he cast his ballot in an election set to shatter the traditional mould of Israel’s two-party system.
About 22,000 police officials were stationed outside the 8,280 polling stations and troop reinforcements deployed nationwide to try to prevent attacks by Palestinian militants.
Two civilians were killed in a blast in southern Israel which was claimed by Islamic Jihad, but medical sources said was likely the result of the Bedouin shepherds handling an unexploded rocket.
“These elections create a golden opportunity to change Israel’s history,” trumpeted the leading Haaretz daily.
In a newspaper opinion piece, Mr Olmert spelled out how he planned to dismantle all settlements which lie outside the massive separation barrier Israel is building across the West Bank in an echo of last year’s dramatic uprooting of Jews from the Gaza Strip.
“We are not going to be able to fulfil all our dreams,” wrote Mr Olmert. “We must preserve the main settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and we will fix the route of the security barrier beyond which we will no longer remain.”
The barrier fences off the majority of the quarter of a million settlers from the 2.5 million-strong Palestinian population but Mr Olmert’s plan would result in the uprooting of around 70,000 Israelis by 2010.—AFP
