Israelis vote in tight election race

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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Israeli candidates scrambled for support from a record number of undecided voters yesterday, the last day of campaigning for today’s tight general election dominated by the meteoric rise of an ultra-nationalist party.

The centrist Kadima and its right-wing rival Likud embarked on a last-minute campaign to woo voters, with opinion polls showing them running almost neck-and-neck in a race that is crucial for the future of Mideast peacemaking, according Agence France-Presse. But Avigdor Lieberman, a former bouncer who has built his reputation on vitriolic attacks against Israeli Arabs, was basking in the spotlight - poised to be crowned kingmaker with his party predicted to become the third largest in parliament.

Undecided voters
Final surveys showed the governing Kadima closing the gap on Likud to just a few seats, filling the sails of the centrist party that had been trailing in previous surveys. With the number of undecided voters at a record high of 20 percent, party leaders are battling it out for every vote as polls gave the Likud faction of former hard-line PM Benjamin Netanyahu 25 to 27 seats in parliament, and Kadima 23 to 25. "Victory is within reach," declared Foreign Minister and Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, who is aiming to become Israel's second woman PM after Golda Meir.

Israeli media reported Netanyahu is concerned that the last-minute drop in support would mean he will head a shaky government that could last only a year or so, and has sought to brandish his credentials as a security hardliner. Yesterday, he toured the Golan Heights, vowing never to cede the territory that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 war and annexed in 1981, as part of any deal with Syria.

Meanwhile, ultra-nationalist leader Lieberman was relishing opinion polls that show Yisrael Beitenu is set to knock the veteran Labour Party to its worst-ever showing of fourth place.

"Lieberman is the scarecrow that panic-stricken Israelis want to place in the political cornfield in the hope that the Arabs are crows: that they will... take fright," wrote a columnist in the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot.

Also yesterday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said during a visit to Warsaw that he was ready to cooperate with any new Israeli government, although peace talks have been at a dead end since Israel's war on Gaza. But he said the Palestinians expected Israel to stop building new settlements in the occupied territories.

Abbas ready for cooperation
"I don't know who will win the elections, but we will cooperate with any new Israeli government emerging from the elections on the basis of the bilateral accords and the international resolutions which have been adopted up to this point," Agence France-Presse quoted Abbas as saying. The Palestinian foreign minister accused Hamas yesterday of trying to influence the outcome of Israeli vote, pointing to the continued rocket attacks on Israel, reported the Associated Press. "Hamas wants instability in the region," said Riad Maliki.