Benjamin Netanyahu has taken a commanding lead in the race for leadership of Israel’s Likud party after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon quit the post to form a new centrist movement, polls showed on Tuesday.Netanyahu, a former prime minister who served as finance minister in Sharon’s government, led a rebellion in the rightist Likud against the prime minister over Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in September.Polls in the Maariv and Yedioth Ahronoth newspapers found that Netanyahu would win about 45 per cent of the vote in a Likud primary on December 19. That would be enough to avoid a second round, which polls predict Netanyahu would win soundly anyway.But Netanyahu will have his work cut out to rebuild Likud, which has been left in ruins by the departure of Sharon and other leading party figures like Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz, who left to join Sharon’s new Kadima party on Sunday.Likud, which has dominated for more than two decades, is predicted to shrink dramatically in the March-28 general election. Opinion polls suggest it might win as few as 11 or 12 seats, a far cry from the 40 it won under Sharon in 2003.Polls point to a convincing victory for Kadima, which is expected to take around 40 seats in the 120-member parliament, setting the stage for Sharon to head a new coalition government.The Centre-Left Labour Party, under newly elected leader Amir Peretz, would come in second, surveys predict.Polls show Netanyahu’s main rival, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, winning between 22 and 30 per cent of the vote in the Likud primary. Far-Right leader Moshe Feiglin would come in third with about 15 per cent. Pollsters suggest that Likud might bounce back slightly once Netanyahu is chosen as party leader.
