These supporters, making up an army of potential Trojan horses, may severely affect the Likud’s ability to maintain political independence from the party’s former leader and founder.

Sharon’s supporters, for example, still comprise a substantial proportion of the Likud’s governing body, the Central Committee. That committee can influence the format of the party’s Knesset list, including the position of each individual candidate, and ultimately whether that candidate gets elected.

While the prime minister’s supporters may have a moral duty to follow his footsteps and leave the party he abandoned, such a move has yet to occur. They also have the option of timing their move to the benefit of Kadima’s party interests.

Some Likud members are worried that Sharon’s supporters will attempt to fashion a list of party candidates that will appear unattractive to potential Likud voters. Another possibility is that Sharon’s backers will attempt to form a list favorable to joining a coalition led by Sharon’s new party, Kadima.

Despite the threat looming over the viability of the Likud as an independent party, many senior party officials, however, are sanguine, convinced that Sharon’s loyalists will not deliberately harm the party.

However, representatives of MK Binyamin Netanyahu, who is a candidate to head the Likud, have voiced their concerns over the Trojan horse issue to INN. They said that the party has not formulated a plan to deal with the problem.

Since resigning from the government last August just before Sharon carried out the disengagement plan, Sharon and Netanyahu, who served as finance minister, have become bitter electoral rivals.

On the other hand, another candidate for the Likud leadership, Moshe Feiglin, was unperturbed by the issue. “In my estimation, this is nothing more than a tempest in teacup,” said Feiglin.

“Every telephone call Omri Sharon makes to a Likud activist will be recorded and exposed,” he said cynically.

Sharon’s son, Omri, who was convicted last week of committing fraud and of violating election campaign laws, was the Likud’s kingpin, before departing to join his father’s new party.

Feiglin believes that Sharon’s supporters simply will not be bothered to vote in the Likud’s primary elections scheduled for January. More practically, however, Feiglin said that Likud members who publicly endorse Sharon should be denied the right to vote in party elections. Feiglin said that aside from using this sanction, there was no other reasonable solution to the problem.

Another candidate for the party’s top spot, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, predicted that Sharon’s supporters “will move over to his new party.” He said the fuss is over Likud members who had supported Sharon over his rival, Netanyahu, but have decided to remain in the Likud sans Sharon.

Party stalwart, MK Yuval Steinitz, head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is also not worried about a potential Trojan horse problem. “Such worries are exaggerated,” he said. “Likud Central Committee members are patriots who would not want to harm the Likud.”

Steinitz cited his own particular experience, saying that he had the support of party officials and activists, despite the fact that he did not support Sharon’s policies.

Steinitz said that Sharon will not attempt to influence the party’s primaries because “the overwhelming majority never took his orders in the past.”

In contrast, another party stalwart, MK Michael Eitan, Chairman of the Knesset Constitution and Law Committee, said he was worried that Sharon’s men will try to intervene in internal Likud politics, but that “there is nothing that can be done to stop this phenomenon.”

He said, however, that he did not think that Sharon’s supporters would have a significant impact on selecting the party’s Knesset list. “Likud Central Committee members are not robots,” he said. An attempt by Sharon to influence the list would affect “200-300 Central Committee members” at most, said Eitan, pointing out that such a number would be insignificant in a committee with 3000 members.