Russians Key Bloc in Israel Election

Russian immigrant voters, viewed by many as the decisive factor in the last two Israeli elections, are shifting support away from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and toward his main rival in the May 17 vote, according to a variety of new polls.

Analysts say the trend could spell the difference in what is increasingly a tight, two-man race between Netanyahu, the conservative Likud Party leader, and Ehud Barak, who heads the left-of-center Labor Party. Support for Center Party candidate Yitzhak Mordechai is dropping fast, the surveys show.

If no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote May 17, a runoff election is planned for June 1.

Pollsters note that Netanyahu still has a majority of the huge Russian vote, which is estimated to consist of 14% of Israel’s 4.2 million registered voters. And they caution that the race is far from settled, with at least 10% of poll respondents saying they are still undecided.

But, according to surveys by independent polling firms, the Russian immigrant Israel With Immigration party and, reportedly, by Likud itself, the prime minister is slowly losing ground to Barak among those immigrant voters, in a shift that has helped the Labor leader open an overall lead of about 8 percentage points in most polls.

The numbers differ slightly from poll to poll but suggest that Netanyahu’s support among the Russians, traditionally one of his most loyal constituencies, has slipped from about 70% of voters surveyed several weeks ago to between 55% and 60% now. Barak’s share of Russian voters has climbed proportionately, and both trends are continuing.

“If Netanyahu is to win, he needs at least 60% of the Russian vote,” said veteran pollster Hanoch Smith of the Smith Research Institute, one of the top polling organizations in Israel. “If it’s less, he’s in deep trouble.”

Israel With Immigration pollster Ron Dermer, referring to the prime minister by his nickname, put it more starkly: “Frankly, Bibi cannot win the election with these numbers.”

A Likud spokesman declined to comment on the new figures, other than to echo recent Netanyahu statements that the election itself is the only “true voter survey.”

But with less than two weeks to go to election day, both Likud and Labor are scrambling after the Russians, launching massive telephone canvassing operations and courting Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet refusenik who heads Israel With Immigration.

At a news conference Wednesday, Netanyahu announced new government benefits--including municipal tax cuts and housing aid--for 30,000 World War II veterans who immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union.

Standing beside Sharansky, who is industry and trade minister in Netanyahu’s government, the prime minister said he did not rule out offering the sought-after Interior Ministry post to Israel With Immigration. The ministry, with authority over citizenship, residency and other matters of critical importance to immigrants, is the subject of a bitter tug-of-war between Israel With Immigration and Shas, a religious party whose members for the most part are Sephardim--Jews of Middle Eastern or North African origin.

Barak, who met with immigrants Wednesday night in the northern city of Haifa, has said he too would consider giving the Interior Ministry post to the Israel With Immigration party.

Smith and other pollsters say the reasons for the recent shift include Barak’s new focus on Russian voters and his campaign’s effective use of his military background to ease their worries about security under a Labor government. Barak is a former army chief of staff and Israel’s most decorated soldier.

At the same time, the pollsters say that in Russian immigrants’ eyes, Netanyahu has been hurt by his close links to Shas and its powerful leader, Aryeh Deri, who recently was convicted on corruption charges and sentenced to four years in prison.

Sharansky, whose party holds seven seats in the outgoing parliament and may gain one or two more this time, has not endorsed either Barak or Netanyahu for prime minister. “Our party was established to support the immigrants, not this or that candidate for prime minister,” he said Wednesday.