TEL AVIV, Israel, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- The scene in Tel Aviv's fairgrounds suggested the Likud was a big party losing its appeal.
Security men and steel barriers surrounded one of the halls, a TV camera was on a tripod pointing at the entrance, and several people were distributing election material on glossy paper.
Yet few of the Likud's 3,000 Central Committee members went to vote on a motion that would increase new candidates' chances of entering the Knesset. Before Prime Minister Ariel Sharon quit, the first 25 slots on the Likud's list of Knesset candidates were open to all candidates, including veteran Knesset members. Following his departure and polls showing the Likud would be badly hit, the Central Committee members were asked to restrict the number of seats open to all candidates and reserve more slots for new entrants.
Some six hours after the polls opened an official at one of the voting boxes closest to the door said his carton box contained only 25 votes. At the far end of the hall another official said only one person voted by her.
Turnout improved in the evening. The Likud's spokesman said few people had come because the vote was on a technical matter.
However there was no denying that the Likud, that had led almost all governing coalitions since 1977, was in deep trouble.
A public opinion poll published Friday in the Haaretz newspaper showed that 62 percent of the people who had voted Likud in the last elections now support Sharon's new party, Kadima. If elections would have been held last week Kadima would have won 39 mandates in the 120-seat Knesset, Haaretz and Yediot Aharonot polls showed.
If elections were held Sunday, Kadima would have won 41 mandates, the latest Yediot Aharonot poll showed.
Labor would have emerged second biggest with 21 mandates and the Likud would be trailing behind with 11.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz dealt the latest blow to the Likud. Mofaz had initially turned down Sharon's invitation to join Kadima and continue serving as defense minister. Mofaz ran for the Likud's leadership and as late as Friday went to a Tel Aviv market shaking hands canvassing support for the party's top slot.
A letter he sent to the 130,000 registered Likud members said: "I have decided to stay in the Likud.... One does not leave home, and I intend to stay in the Likud under any circumstances."
By the time those letters were delivered Mofaz was no longer in the Likud.
Sunday, at his bodyguards' advice, he climbed an outdoor emergency escape to a second floor hall at the Journalists Association's headquarters in Tel Aviv, walked in through a window, and announced his break with the Likud.
He painted his decision with ideological colors. He reportedly heard Likud ministers talk in closed forums and "Realized this is not where I want to be."
"Whoever stayed in the Likud chose to move right, and further right. The Likud became extreme right," he maintained.
Mofaz supported the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, a move Likud hardliners fought bitterly. Public opinion polls show that hardliner Binyamin Netanyahu was about to win the primaries. Ultra-nationalist Moshe Feiglin, who is also running for the leadership, is not likely to win according to the polls but his people are usually disciplined. They come to vote, and thus have a bigger impact than their actual numbers in the party.
Mofaz joined Sharon even though, by Sunday, was no longer promised the defense portfolio, a very well placed official related.
The increasing support for Sharon's Kadima Party seemed to send the jitters through its rivals. According to the Haaretz poll, 60 percent of the people who had voted for the centrist secular Shinui Party and 42 percent of Labor's supporters now back Kadima.
Shinui that won 15 mandates in the last elections would have won four if elections were held now. Support for Labor that shot up right after Amir Peretz was elected chairman, is gradually -- but steadily -- losing ground.
That seems to be the background for suggestions that various parties -- except Kadima -- form a new government in order to postpone elections from March to November.
Under normal circumstances the Knesset would have run its course in November. A Cabinet crisis led to an agreement, among the parties, to advance elections to March 28.
The legal procedure they chose was one that allows Sharon to replace ministers who resign. However it says that if 61 or more Knesset members back another candidate for prime minister, Israel's president must ask that person to form a government. If that candidate fails, early elections will be held. If he succeeds the countdown stops.
The deadline for recommending an alternative candidate is December 29.
Likud Knesset Member Yuli Edelstein told United Press International one plan calls for a coalition among the Likud, Labor and Shinui. Another is a coalition among the right wing and ultra-orthodox parties with Shinui's tacit backing from the outside.
The idea is to force Kadima into the opposition for almost a year, denying Sharon the advantages he has as prime minister and giving time for friction to emerge between Kadima's hawks and doves.
The chances for such a coalition are "not high but it's not just talk," Edelstein said. He said he expected more moves after Netanyahu wins the Likud's leadership.
Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, a Likud hawk, suggested the parties nominate Labor's former Finance Minister Avraham Shohat who is about to quit politics. He would be a "neutral candidate without political ambition" an aide to Rivlin told UPI.
Peretz recognized the advantages of such a move. It would "explode this bubble (of Kadima) ... empire rising before our eyes." He told Yediot Aharonot that emissaries and mediators of the Likud, the National Religious Party and the National Union suggested he be prime minister.
Peretz, who pushed for early elections, said he would not join such a coalition because it would undermine his credibility. Shinui's leader Tommy Lapid told Channel 1 TV he did not want to help the right wing and religious parties. National Religious Party leader Zevulun Orlev said talk of an alternative coalition is "imaginary but if I am wrong of course we shall join."
Political observers noted that two and a half weeks in Israeli politics is a long time, enough for surprise developments.
