MIDDLE EAST: The move by Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to set up a new centrist political party just four months ahead of early elections has proved popular with voters, with fresh polls showing he has strong support to lead a new government.
With elections scheduled for March 28th, three new surveys gave Mr Sharon between 30 and 33 seats in the 120-member parliament, enough to make his new party the biggest faction in a governing coalition, virtually ensuring him a third prime ministerial term.
Mr Sharon (77) will take comfort from the high ratings, which vindicate his risky decision to walk out on his rebellious right-wing Likud Party, which he founded 32 years ago in order to pursue his declared agenda of setting permanent borders between Israel and the Palestinians.
However, Mr Sharon's opponents have played down the findings as reflecting merely initial goodwill for his as yet unnamed party, which may eventually be called Kadima, the Hebrew word for "forward".
The Likud came a distant third after the Labour Party in polls yesterday in the Yedioth Ahronoth, Haaretz and Maariv newspapers, with between 12 and 15 parliamentary seats, substantially fewer than its current 40.
Labour, under its newly elected trade unionist leader, Amir Peretz, was projected to win 25 or 26 seats, five more than the 21 it currently holds.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr Sharon's bitter political foe and likely hardline successor as Likud leader, swiftly launched a bitter attack on the prime minister, branding him a dictator who would put the country's security at risk.
Mr Netanyahu had led the self-styled "rebels" within Likud who accused Mr Sharon of giving in to Palestinian violence by withdrawing all settlers and troops from the Gaza Strip last summer, a move made outside a framework of peace talks.
Other contenders in elections for the Likud leadership likely next month include the defence minister, Shaul Mofaz, and foreign minister Silvan Shalom.
Mr Sharon's supporters said yesterday that he wants to draw Israel's borders in the framework of the internationally backed peace deal known as the road map, and has ruled out further unilateral pullbacks from occupied Palestinian land.
However, there have been no serious efforts to implement the road map since it was agreed in June 2003, and Mr Sharon is demanding that the Palestinian Authority disarm militants ahead of any talks.
Meanwhile, Israel early yesterday launched air strikes inside Lebanon in what it described as the largest-scale action against Hizbullah militants since Israeli forces pulled out in 2000.