Israeli Elections Too Close to Call after Recent Poll

by Rob Walker | February 6, 2009 at 01:12 pm

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Israeli's new government will be elected on February 10, and so far it is anyone's game. Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party has only a slim lead over Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's Kadima party, a lead that narrowed to two seats in the latest poll.

Surveys of 1,000 Israelis show an election that is drawing increasingly close, despite a big lead by Netanyahu ealier this year. The elections are taking place only three weeks after a 22-day military campaign in the Gaza strip.

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In previous polls, Likud had been holding a lead of three to four seats over Kadima, which advocates making concessions to make peace with the Palestinians. Polls in the daily Globes and Ma’ariv showed Netanyahu’s party with its earlier lead.
“It is very clear that the election will be very close,” said Shlomo Avineri, a political scientist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Final polls show a tight race ahead of Israeli elections next week.
Israel's front-runner Benjamin Netanyahu has blown a big lead, and final polls show him barely ahead of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Polls give Mr. Netanyahu's hawkish Likud party 26 or 27 seats in the 120-member Knesset or parliament, only two seats more than Livni's moderate Kadima party.

Final opinion polls published today before next week's Israeli elections suggest the race between the rightwing Benjamin Netanyahu and his rival Tzipi Livni, the centrist foreign minister, may be too close to call.

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