Kahlon highest, Steinitz at bottom in Likud popularity

The other ministers who scored positive ratings above five were Prime Minister Netanyahu, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
Likud Minister Moshe Kahlon 311 (photo credit: Avi Hayun)
Likud Minister Moshe Kahlon 311
(photo credit: Avi Hayun)
Calls in the Likud to replace Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz with Welfare and Social Services Minister Moshe Kahlon received a boost Thursday when a poll indicated that Kahlon was the Likud’s most popular minister and Steinitz among the least.
A Smith Research poll taken for Globes amid headlines about the housing crisis asked 500 people representing a sample of the adult Jewish population on Monday and Tuesday to rank the performance of Likud’s ministers on a scale of one to ten. It had a margin of error of 4.5 percent.
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Kahlon did by far the best with a score of 7.21, followed by Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan at 6.33, and Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar, 5.78. The same three ministers finished among the top four Likud ministers in a Jerusalem Post poll conducted by Smith Research in December 2010.
The other ministers who scored positive ratings above five were Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, Minister-without-Portfolio Bennie Begin, Intelligence Agencies Minister Dan Meridor, and Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein.
Surprisingly, Vice Premier Silvan Shalom, who has been leading an effort supported by 73% of the population to make Sunday a day off, did not crack the five mark, scoring 4.95. He was followed by Culture and Sport Minister Limor Livnat and Minister-without-Portfolio Michael Eitan.
The only minister who finished below Steinitz at 4.66 was Minister-without-Portfolio Yossi Peled, who scored 4.25, but unlike most ministers about whom three fourths of respondents had an opinion, about Peled only 43% agreed to express their viewpoint.
Steinitz fell significantly from the December poll when he scored 5.98, below only Kahlon and Erdan. Netanyahu’s rating also fell significantly, from 5.90 to 5.27. Every Likud minister’s popularity fell except for Kahlon, who went up from 6.97 to 7.21 and Shalom, who went up by .01 to 4.95.