Centrist Candidate’s Bid for Israeli Premier Loses Fizzle

These are scenes of a dying political campaign:

* Young men in Center Party T-shirts march alongside Yitzhak Mordechai, a much-decorated former army general aspiring to become prime minister of Israel. The kid with the megaphone chants, “He is great, he is great, he is great,” sounding roughly like a tune by John Philip Sousa--but somehow in monotone.

* Hecklers who support his former boss and now rival candidate, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, drown out Mordechai’s backers with screams of “Traitor!” The two sides end up in fistfights and clobber each other with campaign posters.

* Mordechai’s appearance here in the working-class south, touring a garbage-strewn market with a large security detail in tow, seems to surprise vendors and shoppers. But in the airless evening heat, few give the candidate more than a glance. The most enthusiastic in the small crowd shout out, “Don’t give up, Itzik!”

And Mordechai--Itzik to his friends--says he will not give up his fight to unseat Netanyahu and lead Israel as the head of a centrist party. But polls, experts and politicians agree that Mordechai is waging a battle that cannot be won.

He is coming under increasing pressure to quit the race and throw his weight behind the current front-runner, Labor Party’s Ehud Barak, before the May 17 vote.

This is a far cry from the day when Mordechai announced his candidacy in January. His debut could not have been more auspicious: Mordechai, who was defense minister, had been abruptly fired by Netanyahu two days earlier for flirting with the opposition. The prime minister went on live television to accuse Mordechai of disloyalty and to deliver the sentence.

Already very popular, Mordechai overnight became the poster child for the dump-Netanyahu movement. He was seen as the most formidable challenger yet to the increasingly unpopular prime minister. Mordechai’s military background appealed to security-conscious Israelis, and his heritage appealed to Israel’s ethnic minorities. The Iraqi-born Mordechai is the first Sephardic Jew--those from North Africa or the Middle East--to make a serious run for the premiership.

He joined forces with a newly formed Center Party, led by other deserters from Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party. Their aim is to provide an alternative in a country that for more than two decades has been split into two polarized camps: the left represented by the venerable Labor Party and the right by Likud and assorted religious parties.

The Center Party’s overriding goal, however, is to oust Netanyahu.

Mordechai initially campaigned based on polls showing that, if he could reach a runoff election with Netanyahu, he would defeat the incumbent by a decisive margin. The other contender, Labor’s Barak, would not fare as well, the early polls showed.

The problem was getting into the runoff, which will be held June 1 if no candidate gains more than 50% of the vote. And in the meantime, Mordechai had slipped in the polls. The most recent surveys were devastating, giving him as little as 5% of the vote.

What happened?

Third parties in general, and centrist parties in particular, have never had much success in Israel. Mordechai’s party sought to be all things to all people, as a way to be unifying and all-encompassing. It came off instead as a fuzzy faction without a clear message.

The campaign trail has not always been kind to Mordechai. In person, he can seem amiable. But his thick build and booming voice also make him appear gruff and wooden, especially on television.

Mordechai’s performance in a debate with Netanyahu last month was initially praised by commentators because he managed to tongue-tie the normally glib prime minister. But upon reflection, the same commentators said Mordechai came off as snide and petty.

Perhaps most important, Barak has gained momentum. His rise in the polls, surpassing Netanyahu, has been fueled in part by voters who have decided that Mordechai can’t win and are casting their lot with Barak, according to pollsters.

Behind the scenes, Center Party leaders have been reduced to making strategic calculations about whether Mordechai should stay on to improve the party’s chances of winning seats in parliament. If it appears that by staying in the race Mordechai would rob Barak of a first-round victory, several Center Party members said, their candidate would be obliged to step aside.

“We embarked on this road together because urgent change is needed, and Netanyahu must be brought down so that this change can take place,” said Dalia Rabin, a candidate on the party’s parliamentary list and the daughter of late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. “At the right moment, [Mordechai] will make the decision that is right for that point in time.”

People who know Mordechai say he is loath to be seen as a quitter. “He is very driven by personal ambition and the need to prove how far he can get,” said Rafi Noy, a retired brigadier general.