The outer wall at Kadima HQ on Gissin Street in Petah Tikva’s industrial neighborhood is still adorned with a very large poster of the party’s founder Ariel Sharon, but that could change soon. Inside the bustling building on Tuesday, a large Sharon poster hung across the main office room where dozens of party activists were working the phones on Election Day, checking in with their counterparts in the field at polling booths countrywide. Across the wall is an election poster showing Sharon on the one side, and Kadima leader Tzipi Livni on the other. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been wiped out of Kadima’s literature and PR material. The party that started with Sharon’s ‘big bang’ and struggled ever since through a barrage of sex scandals, corruption investigations, failed and unfinished wars, has come out the other side stronger that it was when Olmert took charge of the party in 2006. Continue reading
Daily Archives: February 10, 2009
The Undecided People’s Party
Just a few hours to go before the polls open for Israel’s general election, our fifth in a decade. There are many people who won’t vote, a very small number who will spoil their vote, and a vast amount of people who will only decide who to vote for as they enter the polling booth, and even then not do so with a clear conscience. Choosing the lesser evil is not as thrilling as voting for someone or something you truly believe in. These people, about 30 percent of the electorate, are good, honest folk, who do want to throw away their right to vote just because, at this late stage, they still don’t know who to vote for. I hope they go out to vote and don’t stay home just because they can’t make up their minds. It’s like you know you should buy something with the gift voucher you’ve been given, and you don’t want it to go to waste – it’s only valid on one day every 2 and a half years [technically 4 but hey whose counting?] – but you’re not sure what to get with it. Continue reading
