* Netanyahu weighing early vote
* Commentators see ballot in August or September
By Maayan Lubell
JERUSALEM, April 30 (Reuters) – Israel’s Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu would win an election were it held now, an
opinion poll showed on Monday, as he weighs his strategy towards
Iran’s nuclear programme and speculation grows that he will seek
a renewed public mandate.
The next parliamentary election in Israel is not due until
October 2013, but Netanyahu signalled on Sunday he was
considering moving up the ballot.
On Saturday, a former Israeli spymaster branded the
country’s leaders as “messianic”, in the strongest criticism yet
from a security veteran of threats to launch a pre-emptive war.
But an opinion poll conducted on Sunday night and published
in the popular Yedioth Ahronoth daily showed Netanyahu’s
right-wing Likud party winning 30 of 120 parliamentary seats if
a poll were held now, up from the 27 it currently holds.
A slew of commentators, citing cracks in the governing
coalition over formulating a new law that could force
ultra-Orthodox Jews to serve in the conscript military, said
Netanyahu may opt to set the election date as early as August or
September.
Such a result would make him the leader of the largest
faction and the likely candidate to form the next government.
According to the poll, Israel’s main opposition Kadima
party, currently the largest in parliament, would drop from 28
seats to 11. Kadima, a centrist party, recently replaced its
leader, former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, with ex-defence
chief Shaul Mofaz.
The survey showed the Labour Party, widely expected to gain
strength from a wave of social protests that swept Israeli
cities last summer, taking 18 seats, a steep rise from its
current 8, and becoming the second largest faction.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s party Yisrael Beitenu,
Netanyahu’s biggest coalition partner, would capture 13 seats,
down from its current 15, the poll showed. The poll surveyed 500
people and has a margin of error of 4.5 percent.
In an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth’s website, Ynet,
Lieberman described an early election as a done deal. “It’s now
just a matter of (setting) dates,” he said.
Lieberman has been a leading advocate of imposing military
service on ultra-Orthodox Jews – most Jewish men and women are
subject to the draft at the age of 18 – and requiring Israeli
Arabs to perform national service outside the armed forces.
Ultra-Orthodox parties in the coalition have said they would
fight such a move. The current conscription law expires in
August and the government has to decide the issue soon.
Netanyahu has also been under pressure from pro-settler
coalition partners and some outspoken Likud party members who
have questioned his commitment to Jewish settlements in the
occupied West Bank, where Palestinians seek a state.
Netanyahu’s government has pledged to evict or raze numerous
settlement outposts put up without official sanction, drawing
warnings from some political allies that his coalition could
collapse as a result.
(Writing by Maayan Lubell, Editing by Jeffrey Heller/Ruth
Pitchford)
