Israel's Sharon Wins Likud Race: TV Polls

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, November 29, 2002

Israel's Sharon Wins Likud Race: TV Polls

Fresh Israeli TV polls gave Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a massive win over his major challenger Benjamin Netanyahu in the race for Likud leadership.

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Israel's Sharon Wins Likud Race

Fresh Israeli TV polls gave Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a massive win over his major challenger Benjamin Netanyahu in the race for Likud leadership.

A Israel TV Channel One poll made public shortly after 10:00 PM (20:00 GMT)Thursday when the voting ended in the Likud leadership race, gave Sharon a lead of 24 percentage points over Netanyahu.

Another survey carried out for Channel Two gave Sharon a 17.5 percentage point advantage, with 58 percent of the vote for Sharon compared to Netanyahu's 40.5 percent.

According to local media report, voter turnout in Thursday's Likud leadership primary increased significantly toward the end of the day, after Sharon's call to Likud members to cast their votes despite the terror attack hours earlier on a Likud branch in northern Israel's Beit She'an, in which six Israelis were killed.

Voter turnout among Likud members was over 40 percent, Channel One reported at around 9:30 PM (19:30 GMT), adding that the figure could reach 50 percent by the time the polls close at 10:00 PM (20:00 GMT).

If elected the new chairman for Likud, Sharon, according to all the polls, is expected to easily win the general election on Jan. 28 and become the next Israeli prime minister.

Thursday's Likud primary was the single, largest party primary in the country's history.

Some 305,000 Likud members, including more than 4,000 who are members of both Likud and Labor, were eligible to participate in the balloting.

Some 678 ballot boxes have been set up at 152 locations around the country, and the Likud has hired some 2100 guards and monitors to man the polling stations.

Earlier on the day, at least six Israelis were killed and some 30 injured in an attack by two Palestinian gunmen who opened fire on people voting in the Likud leadership primary at the party branch in the northern town of Beit She'an.

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