THE LAST opinion polls that can be published before Tuesday’s election in Israel showed the centrist Kadima, led by foreign minister Tzipi Livni, narrowing the gap on the leading right-wing Likud, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu.
Different polls put the Likud lead at between one and three seats in the 120-seat Knesset parliament.
In third place came the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel our Home), ahead of Labor on the left, which will be relegated to being Israel’s fourth largest party for the first time in its history.
The polls also showed about 15 per cent of voters still undecided, with only four days to go.
A disproportionately large number of floating voters are said to be considering Kadima as an option, meaning the current governing party could still end up as the largest party in the next coalition.
President Shimon Peres will decide who to ask to form the next government after hearing the recommendations of all the parties that win seats. The right- religious bloc still has a significant 10-seat lead over the left-centre bloc, meaning only a dramatic last-minute shift to the left will prevent Benjamin Netanyahu becoming Israel’s next prime minister.
The election campaign has been lacklustre, with only the dramatic rise of Yisrael Beiteinu generating much interest.
In contrast to previous campaigns, activists handing out pamphlets at key road junctions were conspicuous by their absence, and gone are the days when every second car had a bumper sticker revealing a political allegiance.
It appears that most Israelis are tired, not only of the incessant conflict with the Arabs, but also with politics as a whole.
A very common refrain over the last few weeks when discussing voting preferences was “the least bad option”, and none of the parties is likely to receive more than 30 or so mandates.
Whichever party wins the most seats, the arduous task of coalition building will dominate the weeks following Tuesday’s poll.
The policy guidelines of the new government will, of necessity, be vague, in order to accommodate parties with differing ideologies and agendas.
Under such a scenario, dramatic policy initiatives, such as territorial concessions in the West Bank, appear difficult to envisage.
When the new US Middle East envoy George Mitchell returns to the region later this month he is likely to find that his freedom to manoeuvre diplomatically is severely restricted by Israeli domestic political considerations.