With the Kadima primary days away, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni looks like a winner.
The latest opinion poll shows her 20 percentage points ahead of her closest rival in the contest that could produce Israel’s next prime minister.
The Kadima Party vote is scheduled for Sept. 17. It comes after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced he would resign following a string of corruption scandals.
Assuming the primary winner can put together a coalition government, she — or he — will automatically assume the premiership.
Livni’s closest competition, according to the polls, is Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz. The two other candidates, Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter and Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit, are stuck in the single digits.
For Mofaz to have even an outside chance at winning the primary, the pollsters would have to be significantly off. That is not beyond possibility.
In the run-up to the 2005 Labor leadership primary, polls showed Shimon Peres beating his main rival, Amir Peretz, by 20 points. But Peretz pulled an upset, edging out his rival by 2 percent. Pollsters hadn’t considered Peretz’s brilliant election-day machine for getting supporters to the polls.
Mofaz, a former IDF chief of staff who has a strong body of activist Kadima supporters, will be hoping for something similar.
Kadima’s party leader is to be elected by the party’s membership — about 72,000 people.
Recruitment of new members with full voting rights was allowed until registration closed July 31. A recruitment race opened, with each candidate trying to bring in as many potential supporters as possible.
That, in turn, spawned a system of mega-recruiters and vote contractors: people with connections and influence who undertook recruitment for the various candidates, promising to deliver blocs of support.
Support for Mofaz is high among these party stalwarts and with party mayors, who could influence voters. But it doesn’t look like enough to turn the tide.
The key factor in the primary — Kadima’s first since Ariel Sharon founded it as a centrist alternative to Likud — has been the widespread perception that Livni is the only candidate capable of winning a national election for the party.
The latest poll, conducted by the Dialog organization, shows Livni with 40 percent of the Kadima vote, Mofaz with 20 percent, Dichter with 6 percent and Sheetrit with 5 percent; 28 percent are undecided.
If no candidate wins at least 40 percent in the Sept. 17 vote, a runoff between the top two will be held a week later. If Mofaz and Livni are the contenders, the poll shows Livni defeating Mofaz, 51 percent to 31 percent.
The first task for the Kadima victor will be to try to form a governing coalition. Success will depend first on whether he or she can count on all 29 Kadima Knesset votes.
If Mofaz wins, Livni has made it plain that she might leave Kadima and form a breakaway faction. He might do the same if she wins.
On the assumption that she wins and Kadima does not split, Livni has been receiving contradictory advice.
Some of her confidants are urging her to do all she can to form a government and then run in new elections in a year or two from the position of prime minister. They argue that if Livni establishes herself as a bona fide national leader, she will have a better chance of winning.
Others say that Livni instead should exploit her current wave of popularity and go for immediate general elections.
The Labor Party, currently down in the polls, also faces a dilemma:
If Livni wins, should Labor join the coalition and try to rebuild its electoral strength from inside the government, or clip Livni’s wings by bolting the coalition and preventing her from forming a government?
If Labor goes with Livni, it will boost her standing. If it stays out, it risks early elections in which polls show Labor would take a beating.
The new political situation in Israel highlights the Labor-Kadima paradox. The parties share a similar centrist ideology and are natural allies against the right. But precisely because they are ideologically close, they must fight for the same political space.
Likud, which still leads in most polls, will want to press for early elections before Livni gains stature as a national leader.
There is talk of a possible Labor-Likud coalition without Kadima, leaving Livni to wither in the opposition. As appealing as this may appear at first glance to Labor’s Ehud Barak and Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, it is highly unlikely.
Netanyahu would not want to help Barak, who is currently trailing in the polls, by crowning him prime minister. The Labor left would not countenance a coalition with Likud and the far right at the expense of a would-be peacemaking partnership with Kadima.
The key to whether Livni is able to form a coalition could lie with the haredi Orthodox Sephardic Shas Party.
Shas will make heavy demands — for example, restoration of hefty allowances for families with many children. Livni so far has made no promises to Shas or anyone else. That has been one reason for her popularity.
How Livni deals with the pressures of coalition-building could be a first real test of her leadership potential.
As for Olmert, though he will formally resign after the Kadima primaries, he will be acting prime minister until a new government is formed.
Even the threat of an indictment against him — Israeli police this week recommended to Israel’s attorney general, Menachem Mazuz, that Olmert be indicted on two corruption-related charges — is not expected to change the picture. Mazuz is unlikely to indicts Olmert imminently.
Once the primary is over, the new Kadima leader will have six weeks to form a government.
If she or he succeeds, the winner could choose to govern or use the majority to call for early general elections.
If she or he fails, President Shimon Peres could give another Knesset member a chance to form a government or call early elections if there is no likely candidate.
One way or another, the scandal-ridden Olmert era is ending.
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