Israel returns to politics as Sharon improves

Polls favor Kadima
A poll for Channel 10 TV and the Haaretz daily projected that an Olmert-headed Kadima would win 44 of 120 seats, an outcome that would virtually assure it would lead the next government. Likud and the dovish Labor Party trailed with about 15 seats each. Pollsters questioned 640 voters but did not give a margin of error.

Kadima politicians cautioned against reading too much into the poll, while experts said the results might reflect sympathy for Sharon’s plight and might not hold.

“We know about the limitations of these polls,” Kadima lawmaker Haim Ramon told Israel TV. “This just says that it depends on what we do. This week we acted well.”

Sharon formed the party late last year, bolting from Likud after many of its lawmakers tried to torpedo his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

Though many experienced politicians joined the centrist Kadima, it was largely seen as a one-man show. Sharon had not yet drawn up the party’s election list — a difficult and often divisive process — when he suffered his stroke.

Ariel Schalit / AP Israeli schoolchildren, holding balloons and a photo album of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, gather at the Hadassah hospital, where Sharon remains in critical condition.

On Wednesday, some Kadima officials discussed running Sharon symbolically in the top position on the list, but making Olmert their candidate for prime minister. “Let’s say that (Sharon) has serious physical limitations, but in all other capacities he functions. There is no one better than him for the first place,” Ramon said.

Tourism Minister Abraham Hirchson, also of Kadima, said the party should wait to see Sharon’s condition before making a decision.

Opposition politicians, however, criticized the idea.

“I don’t think that at the moment Sharon should be seen as some kind of electoral asset to be used by Kadima or anyone else,” Likud lawmaker Yuval Steinitz told Israel TV, dismissing the proposal as “inappropriate.”

Other politicians appeared to accept that Olmert would take Sharon’s place as leader of the party. “I’m waiting for Ehud Olmert to come out and say what exactly the Sharon tradition means to him,” Labor lawmaker Yuli Tamir said. “Then we can have a proper political debate.”

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