Polls show sway on Israeli leanings

JERUSALEM -- With the front-running Kadima party sinking further in opinion polls, large numbers of undecided Israeli voters have infused last-minute drama into today's national parliamentary elections. And, in a reminder of the political and security challenges facing the next government, the militant group Hamas yesterday announced its proposed Cabinet.

Right-wing Israeli parties -- especially Russian-speaking immigrant Avigdor Lieberman's nationalist Yisrael Beitenu -- have slowly gained ground as they point to the uncertainty over the country's security following the Hamas victory. A poll published in the daily Ma'ariv showed that the right-leaning bloc could win as many as 59 seats, surprisingly close to a 61-vote majority that could thwart the centrist Kadima even if it emerges, as expected, as the single largest party in parliament.

Just one day after the Israeli election, the Palestinian parliament is expected to vote tomorrow to approve the Cabinet proposed by Hamas, a step that would put in power in the West Bank and Gaza Strip a group that has sworn to destroy Israel. Hamas's surprise victory in January, despite polls favoring the entrenched Fatah party, showed that no front-runner's victory is assured in the volatile Israeli-Palestinian arena.

Signaling possible flexibility, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's choice for prime minister, told Palestinian legislators yesterday that his government would welcome ''dialogue" with the so-called Quartet of Middle East interlocutors -- the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations -- ''seeking all means to end the state of conflict and enforce calm in the region."

Haniyeh also called on the international community to ''line up with the values of justice and fairness . . . and not to take side with one party against another." He did not make clear how Hamas would find common ground with the Quartet after so far rejecting its demands to renounce violence, recognize Israel, and accept previous peace agreements.

Israeli officials dismissed the comments as an attempt to lull international opinion on the eve of the Israeli vote.

Kadima, the new centrist party, has built its platform and its campaign around its plan to withdraw from much of the West Bank while keeping large Jewish settlements there. That would build on the pullout from Gaza that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon carried out last year before he left the right-wing Likud party and founded Kadima. Sharon was felled by a stroke in January and remains in a coma.

Sharon's disengagement plan won the support of most Israelis, and Kadima was projected to win more than 40 seats in the 120-member Knesset when the party was formed. But its support has eroded steadily and yesterday's polls showed it mustering 34 seats -- possibly as few as 32 -- down from 36 last week.

Even with 34 seats, Kadima could form a coalition with left-wing Labor, projected to be the second-largest winner with about 20 seats; and other small parties. A poll by the daily Yedioth Ahronoth showed Kadima holding its right-wing rivals to 51 seats. The Ma'ariv poll gave Kadima an even slimmer victory, with the right-wing parties winning 54 to 59 seats.

But many analysts say that margin of victory would leave Kadima short of a mandate to confidently push a centrist agenda because the defection of even a few of its left-wing coalition partners could cause the government to fall.

The varying poll projections stemmed from undecided voters, whose ballots will account for as many as 28 seats, according to one poll. Every poll uses its own method to allocate undecided votes; hence the wide discrepancies.

Voter support is more volatile than ever before, campaign strategists and analysts say, because the seismic shift in the political scene has left many voters on both right and left uncertain if their traditional party still represents them.

Sharon's former party, Likud, has been shattered since he abandoned it in November; it is expected to win just 13 to 15 seats after dominating Israeli right-wing politics for decades. The party's support among Russian-speakers, who strongly supported Sharon, has been decimated.

One survey yesterday even predicted that Lieberman's secular nationalist party is backed by 45 percent of Russian-speakers and would outpoll Likud to become the third-largest party in the Knesset.

Lieberman, in a recent interview, held out the possibility that he could join a Kadima ruling coalition rather than a right-wing bloc.

''I don't see today one big right-wing party or movement," said Lieberman, whose supporters are skeptical of right-wing religious parties and want secular reforms such as instituting civil marriage. ''We have too many differences."

Adding to the uncertainty is the question of turnout. With many Israelis disillusioned with politics, a turnout of 65 percent is expected -- low for Israel, where it regularly reaches 80 percent and more.

''We're becoming a more normal country," Ramon said Sunday at a debate before a group of foreign journalists.

The daily newspaper Haaretz ran a cartoon yesterday showing three young Israeli men at a bar, with trendy shaved heads and tight shirts, watching the three main prime minister candidates on television.

''Which one do you prefer?" the bartender asks. One of the men replies, ''Tuborg."

''Apathy is our biggest hurdle," said Nir Barkat, a Jerusalem City Council member campaigning for Kadima at the Mahane Yehuda market, a warren of vegetable and meat stalls that traditionally lures politicians to press the flesh.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the third candidate on the Kadima list, initially encountered a hostile scene when she and an entourage of Kadima activists arrived there yesterday to find right-wing protesters -- supporters of the National Union/National Religious Party, to the right of Likud -- waiting.

When the Kadima supporters chanted ''Kadima!" their opponents shouted, ''Corrupt!"; to a chant of ''Olmert!" they replied ''Leftist!"

''Kadima is backwards," shouted Ludmila Solman, 57, punning on the party's name, which means forward in Hebrew.

Globe correspondents Alon Tuval in Jerusalem and Sa'id Ghazali in Ramallah contributed to this story.