Israel

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/02/10/israel.elections.polls/index.html

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israel's two largest parties each claimed a mandate early Wednesday after exit polls showed a surprise first-place finish by the ruling Kadima party and dramatic gains by its conservative rivals.

Kadima's Tzipi Livni won more support than was predicted in the Israeli elections.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's failure to assemble a ruling coalition for Kadima last year triggered Tuesday's elections. But she told supporters after the vote that the narrow edge Kadima appears to have held over the conservative Likud shows her party is "the common denominator of Israeli society."
Livni called on Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu "to respect the choice of Israel's citizens ... and to join a unity government, led by us, that will be based on the large parties in Israel, left and right."
But Netanyahu said the showing by Likud -- which appears to have more than doubled the number of seats it holds in the Knesset -- Israel's parliament -- show voters have rejected Kadima's leadership, and he said conservative parties could form a majority when the results are in.
"With God's help, I shall head the coming government," he said. "I am sure that I can manage to put together a good, broad-based and stable government that will be able to deal with the security crisis and the economic crisis."
"It's a typical Israeli election in that you might have two winners," Israeli political analyst Chemi Shalev told CNN. "The clear-cut winner, in the sense that she did much better than any expectations, is Tzipi Livni and Kadima. But we have to judge elections by the bottom line, and if it turns out that ... Benjamin Netanyahu will be the the prime minister, he will be judged to have been the winner."
CNN correspondent Ben Wedeman and Israeli political analysts warned that exit polls had been wrong in past elections.
The campaign was dominated by the recent war with Palestinian militants in Gaza, which was popular within Israel despite widespread international condemnation. Netanyahu was a harsh critic of Kadima founder Ariel Sharon's 2005 withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers from Gaza, and his supporters say he has been proven right.
Unofficial results gave Kadima a narrow lead over Likud, with the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu in third place and Labor -- Israel's founding party and Kadima's current coalition partner -- in fourth.
According to Israeli media, with all precincts reporting, Kadima was on track to win 28 seats in the 120-member Knesset, the same as it currently holds. Likud was forecast to win 27 -- a dramatic jump from its current 12.
Yisrael Beiteinu was on track to win 15 seats, up from 11 currently, while Labor appeared to have slid from 18 seats to 13. A fourth-place finish would be an unprecedentedly weak showing for Labor, now led by Defense Minister and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
With those numbers, Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu, a party even further right-wing than Likud, would be the third largest faction in the legislature.
If the numbers hold up and Lieberman's party surpasses Labor, the founding party of the Jewish state, it would be unprecedented.
Lieberman, 50, is a polarizing figure whose party has been accused of racism against Palestinians and Arab citizens of Israel.