Kadima Party Fading in Israeli Polls
If elections were held today, the Kadima party under Shaul Mofaz would capture more Knesset seats than under current chief Tzipi Livni, a survey shows.
The centrist party would garner only 10 seats under Livni and 12 under Mofaz, according to the Haaretz-Dialog poll conducted under the supervision of Prof. Camil Fuchs of Tel Aviv University. Kadima currently has 28 Knesset seats.
These results are a bad sign for Livni, less than three weeks before the Kadima leadership primary. She has been campaigning on the claim that she is “the real Kadima” and would bring the party more votes than Mofaz.
A Mofaz-led party came out ahead both with the general public and Israelis who identified themselves as Kadima voters.
The reason given for this is that voters from the more financially secure Ashkenazi community are finding political homes in Labor and Meretz, as well as with TV personality Yair Lapid, who entered politics two months ago.
But Lapid is losing ground fast. The new poll predicts that he would win only seven to eight seats, around half his showing in a Dialog poll conducted for Channel 10 on January 9.
For more, go to Haaretz.com
