According to recent polls, the future for the Kadima opposition party is a bleak one, showing that newly-elected Labor Party leader Shelly Yacimovich will take 22 seats in an election, mostly from Kadima, leaving the party launched by Ariel Sharon far behind.

Adding to the party’s concerns is the infighting, which is beginning to leak out as the power struggle for the party leadership slot moves ahead.

Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister and twice prime-minister elect, is most likely aware by now that her tenure as leader is winding down. By most accounts, she will be remembered as a colossal failure, having had two opportunities to form a coalition and lead the country, failing both times – once when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert resigned, and a second time when her party earned a majority popular vote in the last general election, but the mandate to form a government was given to Binyamin Netanyahu in light of Livni’s failure to build a coalition.

Involved in the movement to unseat Livni is a growing list, including MKs Meir Sheetrit, Avi Dichter, and Shaul Mofaz, all viewing themselves as viable candidates for the top spot. Sheetrit is unwilling to wait any longer, realizing the party is doomed based on polls, seeking to move up primaries. He feels that the party’s ruling to hold leadership elections only 90 days ahead of the next general election would have catastrophic results, aware that if Kadima is to survive, Livni must go.

Sheetrit and others are working to amend party bylaws to permit primaries as soon as possible, confident that if they can oust Livni Kadima may begin rehabilitating itself in the eyes of voters.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)