SHARON'S POST-DISENGAGEMENT DILEMMA: POLLS SHOW

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 TEL AVIV 005364

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PINR IS GOI INTERNAL
SUBJECT: SHARON'S POST-DISENGAGEMENT DILEMMA: POLLS SHOW
SHARON LOSING BUT WINNING

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SUMMARY
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1. A welter of political polling prompted by the eve-of-
disengagement resignation of cabinet minister Binyamin
Netanyahu indicates that while Prime Minister Sharon is
capable of "taking the country" in national elections, some
factions within his Likud party would like to deny him the
chance. The polls conducted in the immediate aftermath of
settler evacuation from the Gaza Strip, have been uniform in
predicting Netanyahu as the victor of Likud leadership
primaries. Faced with this scenario, Sharon can continue
fighting the Netanyahu faction in an effort to stave off
early primaries, while hoping tangible benefits of
disengagement will turn the Likud membership in his favour.
Ultimately, however, with primaries already set for April
2006, Sharon must face a Likud leadership vote, at which
juncture his best option -- according to the latest polls --
may be to bypass the Likud primaries altogether by forming
his own party.

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DISENGAGEMENT DERAILS THE ELECTIONS TIMELINE
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2. Israel's next parliamentary elections are scheduled for
November 2006, but the immediate impact of disengagement has
been to prompt serious expectations of a much earlier
election date. In anticipation, and despite the party
chairman's efforts to delay any action to advance that date
of party primaries, the Likud Central Committee will meet
September 25-26 to vote on a proposal to bring forward to
November the scheduled April 2006 party leadership primaries
in which an estimated 150,000 registered Likud members may
vote. One week into the disengagement process, Channel Ten
of Israel Television still had good news for Sharon when it
canvassed 502 Likud members who gave him 36% support,
compared to 28% for Netanyahu. Two days later, on 24
August, Ha'aretz newspaper published a poll among Likud
members in which a three-way primary between Sharon,
Netanyahu and Uzi Landau returned a reduced 30.6% for
Sharon, 26.3% for Netanyahu and 24.2 percent for Landau,
with 8.7% rejecting all three candidates. In such a
scenario, in which no single candidate gains 40% or more of
the vote, a second-round run-off would be held between the
two front-runners. The Ha'aretz poll of Likud members on
just such a two-way contest gave an impressive 46.9% of
their support to Netanyahu against 30.5% for Sharon.

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NETANYAHU WINS THE BATTLE BUT MAY LOSE THE CAMPAIGN
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3. Netanyahu's supremacy within Likud swiftly assumed
axiomatic status, with the mass-circulation newspaper
Ma'ariv citing the earlier Ha'aretz poll and its near-17-
point lead for Netanyahu over Sharon as the premise for a
poll of 528 adult members of the population who were asked
to consider various election scenarios. Polled as to the
likely results if Sharon is removed from the arena by a
Likud primaries defeat, leaving Netanyahu to head Likud in
parliamentary elections, the sample came up with a near tie
between a Netanyahu-led Likud winning 32 Knesset seats (down
from Likud's current 40 seats) against Labor's 31 (up from
Labor's current 21 seats). The anticipated Knesset
alignment of coalition and opposition parties from such a
result proves to be of precisely equal strength: 60 seats
each and no majority for either. At the other end of the
scenario spectrum, Ma'ariv polled the likely outcome of what
is considered the most unlikely option: "the big bang" or
formation of a mega-party comprising a Sharon-led Likud,
Labour and Shinui. According to the poll, that alignment
would yield 54 seats for Sharon's bloc against 23 for
Netanyahu's Likud, but would damage Sharon's credibility
with the Likud core and could spell the end of Likud as the
powerful super-party in which Sharon says he still believes.

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SHARON VERSUS THE LIKUD
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4. Ma'ariv's other most likely scenario, "the small bang"
or fragmentation of Likud into a Sharon-led breakaway party
pitted against Netanyahu involves real risks for Sharon, but
greater returns if he can survive the split from the party
he himself created. Polling a sample of the general public
on this scenario, Ma'ariv found 34 seats for a Sharon-led
breakaway Likud compared with 20 for a Netanyahu-led Likud
hardline faction. The polling showed Labor dropping to 17
Knesset seats from its current 21, with the centrist Shinui
reduced to 9 from 15. That outcome would benefit Sharon by
downsizing Labor and Shinui to the stature of possible
junior coalition partners with everything to gain from
participation in government and very little to lose.

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LIKUD CAN CHOOSE: A LEADER OR THE NEXT PRIME MINISTER
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5. Netanyahu's clear ascendancy within the ranks of Likud
members and the inner circle of the powerful central
committee is not matched by his broader electoral magnetism.
The Ma'ariv poll of August 25 shows that in parliamentary
elections Sharon simply delivers more votes than Netanyahu
can hope for: A Sharon-led Likud pulls in 38 Knesset seats
compared to 32 for a Netanyahu-led Likud. The August 26
Yediot poll that has Netanyahu beating Sharon 42% to 35% in
Likud primaries also notes that 23% of those polled were
undecided -- a factor that renders the poll of limited
encouragement to the Netanyahu camp.

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COMMENT
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6. In short, Likud members will need to decide whether they
would rather be "right" or in power. Likud as a party that
seeks to lead the next government must decide whether
Sharon's proven ability to garner support across the
political spectrum makes him a greater electoral asset to
Likud than the charismatic, volatile Netanyahu. Sharon will
have to exercise all his combative talents to subdue the
central committee, but he is a sitting prime minister in a
government that is winning international praise, and he
will not be wholly alone in the task. Likud pragmatists
will be looking for compromise formulae to retain Sharon
while reining him in on future policy decisions. The hard-
line rebels and all those who have little or nothing to seek
in the way of gratitude from Sharon will work to unseat him
by means of early primaries. The clear schism in the polls
to date -- which reveals Netanyahu as a potential primaries
winner but an overall leadership liability -- is not lost on
either his supporters or detractors.