According to Monday morning’s poll released by Maariv newspaper, Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Kadima Party remains in the lead, but has dropped to 34 predicted Knesset seats. The Labor party is predicted to receive 17 seats, Likud 14, Yisrael Beiteinu 12, Shas 12, National Union/NRP 11, Arab parties 7, UTJ 6, Meretz 5 and the Pensioners Party 2.
Yediot Acharonot newspaper reported similar results in terms of Kadima, but gave right-wing parties fewer mandates altogether, with National Union/NRP receiving just 9 seats.
Maariv also featured a front-page headline saying that 65,000 voters had committed to vote for Baruch Marzel’s Hazit Party, which would probably be enough to ensure that it passes the minimum threshold. No other polls have predicted success for Hazit.
Yisrael Beiteinu, the Russian-immigrants' party headed by Avigdor Lieberman, has confounded the pollsters altogether. Four different polls released last night gave the party four different totals, ranging from 7 to 15 seats.
Pollsters interviewed on various news programs in recent days have given a host of reasons why predictions of a Kadima win could turn out as wrong as those of Shimon Peres’s Labor primary victory, his presidential run and the passage of the Gaza withdrawal in the Likud referendum – all of which turned out the opposite of what pollsters had promised.
Pollsters have warned that almost a quarter of Israeli voters still have not decided for whom they will cast their votes – meaning that 28 seats in the Knesset are unaccounted for by the published polls. A whopping 75% of Israelis polled refused to answer pollsters' questions or participate in surveys altogether. Additionally, 15-18% of those who have answered polls indicate that they may change their mind before they actually cast their vote on Tuesday.
Pollsters also lament the large number of young voters who rely on cellular phones and email for communication and are therefore inaccessable to pollsters, who rely on listed home phone numbers in local phone directories.
The most recurring theme in the pollsters' caveats is the concern that those who found it easy to say they will vote Kadima over the phone – might not trouble themselves to actually go to the polling stations on the day of the elections, which is a national vacation day in Israel. Additionally, predictions of rain on Tuesday may compound complacency with inconvenience.
Meanwhile, Land of Israel activists are expressing cautious optimism as polls show a steady rise for a right-wing bloc.
An e-mail making the rounds in religious circles points to the date of elections, the 28th of Adar, as a holiday during Second Temple times. According to the Talmud (Tractate Rosh Hashana 19a and Megilat Ta’anit), on that day, “a good tiding came to the Jews that they would not have to disconnect themselves from the Torah." It was on that day that, through prayer and concrete political action by Yehuda Ben Shamoa and his disciples, that the decree against learning Torah, keeping the Sabbath, and circumcision was nullified.