Poll: Lapid could make or break Kadima

Knesset Channel poll finds that Kadima would receive 32 mandates with Lapid, only nine without.

By JPOST.COM STAFF, GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
Yair Lapid 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Yair Lapid 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Former anchorman-turned politician Yair Lapid could make or break Kadima in future elections, a "Panels" Institute poll conducted by the Knesset Channel revealed on Sunday.
According to the poll, were the popular Lapid to run on a new party list, that party would receive 20 mandates, while Kadima would receive just nine.
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If Lapid - who quit Channel 2 news Sunday to enter politics - were to run on Kadima's ballot, the center-left party would receive 32 mandates.
A separate survey Sunday, carried out by Professor Yitzhak Katz for a Channel 10 morning program, countered the Knesset Channel poll. The former revealed that an independent party including the former TV journalist and columnist for Yediot Aharonot would only receive seven mandates, a far cry from either the 20 mandates in the Knesset Channel poll, or the 15 revealed by a Shvakim Panorama poll released last week on Israel Radio.
And while many in the Center and Left have welcomed Lapid's midlife career swap - Kadima's MK Shaul Mofaz told Lapid himself he wanted the former anchorman to "topple the awful [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu government" - his effect will be far more tangible on that side of the political spectrum, rather than on the Right.
According to both the Knesset Channel and Channel 10 polls, an independent Lapid party would not negatively affect Likud.  If the vote were carried out today, the Knesset Channel and Channel 10 polls found that Likud would receive 29 or 27 mandates, respectively.
Meanwhile, politicians continued to react to Lapid's announcement Monday.
Speaking to Israel Radio, Interior Minister Eli Yishai said "There will now be competition for who could attack haredim Jewish values more in order to get more mandates. This could bring us more mandates, but I prefer that there be unity among the Jewish people."
Kadima council chair Haim Ramon told Army Radio centrist voters would be choosing between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Kadima faction and opposition leader Tzipi Livni for prime minister.
"The election won't be for a year. Over time, the situation changes," he said. "Kadima has been eulogized before. Centrist voters know they have to decide who the next PM will be it's either Tzipi or Bibi [sic]."