Israel Exit Polls: Ehud Olmert Next Prime Minister

Olmert (l.) consults Sharon (r.)

By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency

Jerusalem----March 28......The weather in Israel today was ideal for a holiday. And for Israel's children it represented a joyful vacation as their 10,000 schools were being used as election voting facilities for millions of Israelis. It appears to also have been a holiday for comatose Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who created the Kadima political party and Ehud Olmert who will be trading the title of acting prime minister to Israel prime minister in a matter of hours.

About 57 percent of the 4.5 million eligible voters had cast election ballots by 13:00 EST, the Israel Central Elections Committee said. That was about 6.5 percentage points lower than at the same time in the 2003 national elections.

Israel's three TV stations showed acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's centrist Kadima party winning today's election having secured 29 of the 120 Knesset seats. The Labor party, which appears to become a major players in a coalition government, had a strong second showing. The right wing Likud party, came in a distant third, according to polls broadcast immediately after voting ended. According to the TV projections, Kadima would win 29-32 seats in the 120-member parliament, Labium 20-22 seats and the Likud 11-12 seats.

A slew of political parties took part in the Israel elections today, inculding "Raash" (meaning noise) a father's rights party seeking to reform a gender biased custody law from 1962 which grants automatic custody to mothers.

Former Israel Prime Minister and Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu has just declared defeat on Israel TV.
"There is no doubt that this is a very difficult evening for Likud," said senior party member and former health minister Dan Naveh. "This a crisis unlike any that has ever hit Likud. This requires serious soul-searching."

The political tug-of-war between Ariel Sharon and his right-wing supporters, both within the Likud and outside of it, was an on-going subject of speculation in recent Israel politics and in the Israeli media. Sharon's unilateral disengagement from Gaza alienated many in the Likud. An expectation that Sharon would quit his own party to form a new party composed of his Likud allies and open the door to politicians from other parties to quit their own parties to join the new party was dubbed the "big bang" of Israeli politics because it would result in a radical realignment of Israel's political landscape.

Kadima (meaning "forward" as in a military command) is a new Israeli political party with centre-Right policies. After the elections today, it is also now the strongest party in Israel. It was formed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon after he formally left the rightist Likud party on November 21, 2005.

Sharon recruited senior members of Likud and Labor (including Shimon Peres) into Kadima, and then called for early elections to take place on March 28, 2006. Israel Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (also Industry and Trade Minister and Finance Minister at the time) took over as acting Prime Minister of the State of Israel and chairman of the Kadima Party after Sharon suffered a massive stroke on Jan. 5, 2006 and has remained incapacitated.

The Kadima platform calls for a return to the Road Map in order to generate a two-state solution to the end of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but Olmert has said further unilateral disengagements will take place in the territories if the Road Map fails. While some Jewish settlements will be relinquished, others will be retained in "settlement blocs." The party wishes to maintain the status quo between religion and state and encourage employment through domestic and international investment opportunities.

Kadima's list of Israel candidates include Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres, Tzipi Livni, Meir Sheetrit, Avi Dichter, Marina Solodkin, Haim Ramon, Lt.-Gen. (Res.) Shaul Mofaz, Tzachi Hanegbi and Abraham Hirchson.

Unilateralism appeals to many Israelis worn down by a five-year-old Palestinian uprising and concerned by the rise to power of Hamas in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip after the Islamist militant group won elections in January. "I hope Israel can reach a peace deal with the Palestinians, at the very least separate ourselves from them. We have no other choice," said Hanan Yoran, 43, after voting in Tel Aviv.

"Olmert did what Sharon would not have done on the eve of elections: He told the voters what he intends to do," columnist Nahum Barnea wrote in Yediot. "He turned these elections into a referendum on the future of Judea and Samaria," he added, using the biblical terms for the West Bank.

Born near Binyamina in the British Mandate of Palestine (today the State of Israel), Ehud Olmert is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with degrees in psychology, philosophy and law. He has had his own successful law practice in Israel. Olmert was first elected to the Knesset in 1973 at the age of 28 and was re-elected seven consecutive times. Before this, he served with the Israel Defense Forces as a combat infantry officer in the Golani Brigade.

He served as Minister without portfolio responsible for minority affairs (1988-1990) and as Minister of Health (1990-1992). Between the years 1981-1988, he was a member of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee and has also served on the Finance, Education and Defense Budget Committees. From 1993 to 2003, Ehud Olmert served for two terms of office as Mayor of Jerusalem, the first member of Likud or its precursors to hold the position.

Ehud Olmert was elected as a member of the sixteenth Knesset in January 2003. He served as the head of the election campaign for the Likud Party in the elections, and subsequently was the chief negotiator of the coalition agreement. Following the elections he was appointed as Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor. From 2003-2004, he also served as Minister of Communications.

On August 7, 2005, Olmert was appointed as acting Finance Minister, replacing Benjamin Netanyahu, who had resigned in protest against the planned Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Olmert, who had originally opposed withdrawing from land captured in the Six-Day War, and who had voted against the Camp David Peace Accords in 1978, is a vocal supporter of the Gaza pullout. After his appointment, Olmert said: "I voted against Menachem Begin, I told him it was a historic mistake, how dangerous it would be, and so on and so on. Now I am sorry he is not alive for me to be able to publicly recognize his wisdom and my mistake. He was right and I was wrong. Thank God we pulled out of the Sinai."

During Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's second term, Olmert was deputy prime minister and widely viewed as Sharon's right hand man. He was a vocal supporter of Israel government policy and was the most important ally of Sharon during the September 2005 unilateral disengagement plan. When Sharon announced his leaving the Likud and the formation of a new party, Kadima, Olmert was one of the first to join him. Olmert is married and is the father of five.

But today's clear winner was Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Sharon never expected to be out of action just a few days before an Israel national election. And his family, close friends and political associates made sure that he was still running the campaign of Kadima - even if it was with eyes closed.

As a military strategist, Sharon would have completely agreed that his body and soul were used to win a public relations victory for a political party that he created. Those closet to Sharon are all holding Sharon's IDF field army medical stretcher high above their heads. Carrying their wounded commander to yet another victory. For the Israel people did not vote for policy today, but rather honoring the last war hero from 1948. Voting for national honor, pride, wisdom, practical compromise and the brave values for which Sharon will be taking to his final command.

Sharon has lead Kadima to the Prime Minister's office as he lays in a hospital bed, kept alive by machines and an Israeli public which refuses to let him go.