Before results are published, Kadima MKs deride survey

Lawmakers said the results of such a survey would have no significant impact on the internal dynamics of the fractured party.

By REBECCA ANNA STOIL
kadima logo 88 (photo credit: )
kadima logo 88
(photo credit: )
Kadima MKs on Saturday night rejected a survey conducted over the weekend by the Yalla Kadima Web site, hours before the results of the poll that asked a sample of party members whom they support to lead Kadima were slated for publication.
Those lawmakers supporting Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni as well as those backing MK Shaul Mofaz both said the results of such a survey would have no significant impact on the internal dynamics of the fractured party.
“I wouldn’t give this survey even a single percentage point of importance, because we all know that Yalla Kadima exists only to attack Livni,” MK Shlomo Molla said. “The results are simply irrelevant. I am willing to sign off on the fact that there will not be a primary until one year before the scheduled elections.”
The next national election is set for November 2013.
Molla added that the fact that the results are expected to be published exclusively in Yisrael Hayom, the free Hebrew-language daily that has been attacked by Kadima MKs as pro-Likud, further limited the relevance of the poll. “The goal of Yisrael Hayom] is simply to increase the divide within Kadima,” he said.
MK Eli Aflalo, a vocal member of the anti-Livni camp, also warned against trusting the poll results – but for the opposite reason. “Before the last primary [held in September 2008], Yalla Kadima published a poll that was very accurate on the subject of the party candidates’ list, but problematic regarding the race between Tzipi [Livni] and Shaul [Mofaz]. Even though Tzipi led in all the polls by up to 20 percent, Shaul always said that he had the grassroots, which he did until the voting was extended by an additional half-hour.
“Tizpi is likely to come out on top in any poll, even though she doesn’t necessarily have the general support,” added Aflalo. He emphasized that “there is absolutely no chance, regardless of the poll’s results, that it will have any effect on moving forward the date of a primary. There is simply no reason for Livni to allow a primary.”
“The poll has simply no methodological value,” explained MK Marina Solodkin, who has tread a narrow line between the two leaders vying for control of the Knesset’s largest party. Solodkin said that even party activists had no idea how many registered Kadima members really support the party, but her estimate was between 25,000 and 40,000. The survey run by the Web site allegedly polled 1,286 party members – slightly over 50% of those polled by Yalla Kadima in advance of the 2008 primary.
The poll’s sponsors told The Jerusalem Post] that while MKs publicly denied its importance, a number of them invested effort in advance of the Friday poll, trying to recruit registered party members to participate in the survey. Some even opened mini-campaign headquarters in an attempt to influence the results, the sponsors said.
Both Solodkin and MK Ya’acov Edri said they expected that the question of when Kadima will hold a primary, a subject that has occupied the party for months, will soon be put to rest.
“I hope that the problems within Kadima will be solved withoutpolls,” Edri said. “I don’t think that this poll will have any impactone way or the other, but I do hope that a solution will be found.”
He added that ultimately, if the issue was not put to rest by consensus, a vote would be taken among the party’s 28 MKs.
Anysuch vote taken, argued Molla, would conclude in a landslide for theposition asserted by Livni – that a primary will be held only ahead ofthe next general election.