Labor, Likud make final pitches before election

[IndianaGreen]

We need a country forum for Israel that does not include the I/p conflict. Israel is a dynamic and vibrant country and society that has far more depth than the one-dimensional impression most people have.

Here the latest on tomorrow's election. Please notice that Israelis, unlike Americans, don't face the stark choice of voting for two parties that are the mirror image of each other.

Labor, Likud make final pitches before election

By Nir Hasson and Mazal Mualem, Haaretz Correspondents

The Likud and Labor parties on Monday waged closing-minute campaigns on the eve of Tuesday's Knesset elections.

Labor's Knesset slate used the final day of the campaign Monday to distribute flowers to passersby on Tel Aviv's Rothschild Street while leading Likud candidates, including party chair Benjamin Netanyahu, manned the phones at party headquarters in a last-ditch effort to convince former party supporters to return.

"We're distributing carnations. I once grew this flower ," explained party chairman Amir Peretz. "Its characteristic is that you work very hard and see no results, and then, overnight, they all blossom. Hundreds of thousands of blossoms. Tomorrow, there will be hundreds of thousands of blossoms that need only be picked."

Peretz and his colleagues were warmly received, and Peretz promised everyone he met that in coalition negotiations, he would compromise on neither a universal pension plan nor raising the minimum wage. But when one supporter said comfortingly, "don't worry, if you don't become prime minister this time, then next time," all the Labor campaigners jumped on him: "Don't say such a thing. We're going to win."

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/699322.html

ABB = Anybody but Bibi!

[Zynx]

1. Knowing as little as I know I would probably vote Labor or Kadima.

Bibi must be kept out at all costs.

[Scurrilous]

2. Voter turnout by noon lowest in Israeli history

<snip>

"By 12 P.M., voter turnout in Tuesday's election for the 17th Knesset was the lowest in Israeli history.

Polling stations opened at 7 A.M. 5,014,622 voters are to participate in the elections. The polling stations - there are 8,280 across the country - will close at 10 P.M., at which time the three main TV stations will release exit polls.

Just 9.9 percent of Israel's registered voters had cast their ballots by 10 A.M. The trend continued as the day wore on. By noon, just 21.7 percent of voters had cast their ballots - the lowest turnout in Israeli history.

In 2003, noon-time voter turnout was recorded at 24 percent.

The expected voter turnout is some 66 percent - around two percent lower than the rate in the 2003 elections, the lowest turnout in Israeli election history. The prevailing assessment is that low turnout will work to the detriment of Kadima and Labor."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/699377.html

[Englander]

3. From the Guardian's archives;

'We present a selection of contemporary Guardian articles covering each Israeli election since its people achieved statehood in 1948.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/election/archives/0,,1738023,00.html