JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel's right-wing Likud party would soundly defeat Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's centrist Kadima party if elections were held now, a poll by Israel's largest-selling daily said on Friday.
The poll said that Olmert's party would win only 10 seats, far behind Likud with 28, the centre-left Labour party with 21, and the ultra-Orthodox Shas party with 11. Kadima at present has 29 seats and works in coalition with other parties.
Only eight percent of those surveyed said they would like to see Olmert as prime minister, with 33 percent favouring Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu and 17 percent favouring Labour's Ehud Barak, both former prime ministers.
Another 37 percent of those surveyed preferred none of the above.
Olmert could be forced to resign as prime minister at the end of this month following the highly-anticipated release of a government report on failures during Israel's summer 2006 war against the Lebanese Hezbollah militia.
More than three-quarters of those surveyed said Olmert should resign if the report places blame for the war on the political leadership, with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni strongly favored to succeed him as party leader.
The poll was conducted on Thursday by Yediot Aharonot newspaper and the Dahaf-Mina Tzemach Institute among 500 people and had margin of error of 4.5 percent.
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