MIDDLE EAST: Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon must halt his slide in the opinion polls to stay in power, writes Peter Hirschberg
Had anyone predicted a month ago that with less than three weeks to go to elections in Israel, Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon would be fighting for his political life, they would have been dismissed as engaging in wild fantasy.
But that is what has happened. Seemingly invincible when he beat Foreign Minister Mr Benjamin Netanyahu to retain control of the Likud Party in late November, Mr Sharon has watched with ever-increasing dread, as his centre-right party has slid, week after week, in the opinion polls, as a result of a series of corruption scandals.
The latest involves Mr Sharon himself, his two sons, and a $1.5 million loan he received from a South African-based businessman.
Incredibly, with the Likud desperately trying to halt its dramatic slide, the possibility now exists that Mr Sharon will be unable to fashion a stable government after the elections. There are even whispers - still a little far-fetched - that his Labor Party rival, Mr Amram Mitzna, might ultimately be the one asked by the president to form a government.
When allegations emerged of vote-buying and underworld involvement in the primaries to establish the Likud list for the parliament, the party lost 15 per cent support in just three weeks. The drop in the last few days, since the Sharon-related allegations have emerged, has been even more precipitous, with the Likud losing another 10 per cent backing.
The latest affair involves a loan that Mr Sharon's sons, Omri and Gilad, took out to pay back a company from which the prime minister allegedly received illegal campaign contributions during his successful bid for the leadership of the Likud in 1999. Mr Sharon has dismissed the allegations as a "political plot". When the current campaign began, Mr Sharon's strategists planned to focus the spotlight on him and play down the Likud, believing he was far more popular among the public than his party. That sense was strengthened after the vote-buying scandal erupted. But now, with the Likud haemorrhaging support because of Mr Sharon, the party's campaign strategists appear to be at a loss over who exactly to hide.
Labor leaders, who were demoralised, squabbling and already hatching day-after plans of how to shunt Mr Mitzna aside, are now lining up behind the party leader. Likud activists are now the ones looking long-faced, and many, angry over the country's economic decline and stung by the corruption allegations, have begun wondering whether they will actually turn up to vote on election day.
When early elections were announced, the Likud held a 20-seat lead over Labor. That lead is now in single digits. With neither major party ever having won an absolute majority in Israel's 120-seat Knesset, Israeli politics is, in essence, the art of coalition-building. Critical, therefore, is the number of seats garnered not just by each of the two big parties, but also by the competing left and right-wing blocs in Israel.
A month ago, polls gave the right-wing bloc 69 seats to the left's 51. That would have provided Mr Sharon with a rich smorgasbord of choices when it came to cobbling together a coalition.
But the yawning gap has almost been erased, with the latest polls now showing the right-wing with a tenuous 61-59 edge.
But the dovish Mr Mitzna, whose election would clearly spur a new diplomatic reality in the region - he has said he is ready to speak to the Palestinians and to dismantle Jewish settlements - is still a long way from the Prime Minister's Office. Despite the Likud's rapid decline, Labor has been treading water in the polls, unable to attract disgruntled voters.
Even if Mr Sharon does still win on January 28th, he could find himself politically hamstrung, and a pawn in the hands of potential coalition partners. Already, Mr Mitzna has vowed not to rejoin a government under Mr Sharon if it includes right-wing parties.
If Mr Sharon is re-elected and chooses to set up a narrow right-wing government, he then faces the danger of a head-on collision with the international community over a hardline policy he may be forced to adopt. Many in his own party, and certainly those to the right of it, vigorously oppose a Palestinian state and want to see Palestinian Authority President Mr Yasser Arafat expelled.
Only a few weeks ago, when Mr Sharon looked a shoo-in, he confidently informed members of his own party who expressed their opposition to Palestinian statehood, that if they did not obediently toe his line - he has expressed support for a limited Palestinian entity - they would be absent from his future cabinet. But in a narrow coalition, the prime minister will be much more beholden to his party colleagues.
Mr Mitzna got another piece of good news yesterday when the Supreme Court overturned the decision by an electoral parliamentary committee to ban two Arab lawmakers from running in the elections. If the decision had stood, many Arab citizens would probably have stayed away from the polls in protest - a move that would have served the right-wing and Mr Sharon.
Likud insiders believed that the twin suicide attack in Tel Aviv last Sunday, which killed 22 people, would reverse their slide in the polls, by reminding Israelis of what they view as Palestinian intransigence. It didn't. Now, Mr Sharon must find a way to reverse his slide in the polls before he ends up handing Mr Mitzna what would certainly rank as one of the most dramatic victories in Israeli political history.