Stoned teenagers whose only source of political knowledge comes from watching reruns of the Daily Show know that a party gets a bounce in the polls right after they nominate someone new. So those teenagers would have been unsurprised to learn that the Labor party got a bounce after electing Amir Peretz as party Chairman. Ha’aretz writers, on the other hand, are endlessly fascinated:
Had the Knesset elections been held today, the Labor Party led by the newly-elected chairman Amir Peretz would have increased its power significantly – says a Haaretz-Dialog poll held on Thursday, supervised by Professor Camil Fuchs. It emerges that a majority of the Israeli public believes Peretz’s victory in the Labor primaries increased the party’s chances to regain power. Also, for the first time in a long time 82 percent of traditional Labor voters say they will consider voting for their party again. According to the poll, if Labor lead by Peretz contended against Likud headed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Labor would win 28 mandates and Likud 39.
Yeah – they’ll consider it right until someone explains to them that Peretz’s economic plan would crash the shekel and his diplomatic plan essentially amounts to appeasing terrorists. More fascinating poll data:
Under both scenarios Shinui loses much of its strength and wins between six to seven mandates. Its chairman Yosef Lapid can find comfort in the fact that Shinui’s arch-rival Shas also faces a significant drop in its electorate, as the poll predicts it would lose half its seats and would be left with five to six mandates. Meretz, the poll predicts, would lose half its seats as well, and would remain with a meager three mandates.
Of course Meretz fades into oblivion with Peretz in the race – why vote for a marginal peacenik party like Meretz when you can vote for a mainstream peacenik party like Labor under Peretz? That should be Peretz’s slogan for the election: “Labor – we’re like Meretz, but older” (alternative: “Labor – we’re so committed to a radical, unpopular agenda that, we threw out our veteran party leader just to prove it!”).
If you can stomach it, here’s the write-up of Peretz offering Shimon Peres a job in the Labor party. This would be the party that Peres brought Peretz back into after Peretz was forced out for being little more than a union hack, and the party that Peres has single-handedly rebuild at least twice now after his inferiors ran it into the ground.
Which brings us to our inaugural Peretz is a Liar Watch:
Also Friday, Labor Party secretary general Eitan Cabel announced that party leaders would meet in three weeks to decide whether to quit the government, Israel Radio reported. The decision was made at the first party meeting with Peretz as the newly elected chairman. This announcement tamed earlier statements made by Peretz on Thursday, who said he would act immediately for the resignation of Labor from the government and to set a date with other Knesset parties for early elections.
Instead, the elections will probably be held some time in March.
