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Sharon Has 3rd Round Of Surgery
Jews pray for Ariel Sharon at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem. Sharon was reported to have shown modest improvement after surgery.
(By Esteban Alterman -- Bloomberg News)
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Sharon's almost certain departure from office has caused tremendous uncertainty in the political arena he has dominated since becoming prime minister nearly five years ago, particularly among members of his newly formed Kadima party.
Sharon created the party in November, drawing largely from members of his hawkish Likud Party and the dovish Labor Party, which have little in common except support for the highly popular prime minister.
Ehud Olmert, the acting prime minister and a close Sharon ally, has emerged as the top candidate to lead the centrist party into national elections scheduled for March 28.
Public opinion polls conducted since Sharon's stroke have shown Kadima winning as many as 40 seats in Israel's 120-seat parliament with Olmert in charge -- comparable to the party's projected showing under Sharon. But some political analysts here say most of that support is an expression of sympathy for the prime minister and may pass quickly.
Shimon Peres, the longtime Labor stalwart who left to support his old friend's new party, met Friday with Olmert to discuss what he said were "ways to continue Sharon's policies -- both an uncompromising war against terror and an endless effort toward peace."
A poll conducted for the newspaper Haaretz and Channel 10 television showed that Kadima would win 42 seats with Peres as leader.
But Peres, 82, is not considered a serious candidate to lead a party dominated largely by former Likud members. He declined Friday to say whether he would stay in Kadima or return to Labor, which is now led by former labor union leader Amir Peretz, who defeated Peres in a leadership vote last year despite his relative inexperience in national partisan politics.
Although he has lost a number of national elections, Peres is considered a valuable political asset because of his broad appeal among traditional Labor voters of his generation.
"I will give a statement in due time," Peres told reporters after meeting with the acting prime minister. "I am not willing to give fragments. I first want to end the conversation with Mr. Olmert that we have not yet finished."
