TEL AVIV, Israel, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's brain stroke and massive bleeding seems to have ended his political career but his new party. Kadima is likely to remain very influential, political observers and polls indicated.
Sharon was in "severe but stable condition" Thursday after all-night brain surgery, the Hadassah Hospital's Director General Prof. Shlomo Mor-Yosef said.
The prime minister arrived at the Jerusalem hospital shortly before midnight, Wednesday. Sharon was vaguely conscious and a CT scan showed a massive brain hemorrhage. In an operation that lasted several hours doctors stopped the bleeding, sent him to another CT scan and found "additional areas that had to be treated." They sent him back to the operating table.
Thursday evening Mor-Yosef reported Sharon was under deep anesthesia and with a respirator to retain low intracranial pressure, which will continue for 24 to 72 hours.
The operation was on the right side of Sharon's brain, so Sharon might have retained his ability to speak, understand and remember. However that could be assessed only after he wakes up, Mor-Yosef said.
Earlier, heads of neurosurgical departments in other hospitals concluded his chances for a complete recovery were slim. Sharon will be 78 in February and his age also reduces his chances, doctors said.
"Prospects for recovery in such a condition are almost nill," said Prof. Moshe Hadani, head of the Neurosurgical Department at the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer. The chances of living after a massive brain event "is low to begin with and the chances of ... functioning reasonably...are even smaller," the head of the Neurosurgical Department at the Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, Prof. Zvi Ram, told Israel Radio.
The stroke hit the same day Sharon's new party formally registered. Public opinions polls conducted in recent weeks showed it enjoyed a fairly stable support enough to win almost 40 of the 120 seats in the Knesset (parliament).
A significant part of that support was for Sharon, personally. Now "Israel will have to part, in one way or another, with its father figure," wrote Yediot Aharonot columnist Ya'ir Lapid.
Dr. Menahem Hofnung, of the Hebrew University's Political Science Department, predicted all the parties would try to win some of those voters. "The Likud will gain though I don't know by how much," he told United Press International. Nevertheless other former Likud supporters who switched to Kadima did so because they agreed with Sharon's policy, were fed up with the Likud's riotous central committee and opposed its hard right wing stances, Hofnung said.
Labor's leader Amir Peretz was reportedly under pressure to try and lure former Prime Minister Shimon Peres who moved to Kadima. Many people who voted for the small dovish Meretz and the centrist Shinui might go back to supporting those parties if Sharon no longer heads Kadima, Hofnung predicted.
Most of the people who left the Likud with Sharon will stick together, said Prof. Abraham Diskin, also of the Hebrew University's Political Science Department.
Olmert and Justice Minister Zippi Livni who recently seemed to be competing for power have reportedly patched up their differences. Livni told reporters, Thursday, she would help Olmert, "As best as I can." Other Kadima ministers and Knesset members said they considered Olmert their leader.
Moreover, some of the people that moved to Kadima with Sharon have no realistic option to go back to their former parties. "People have dignity and I do not think that Kadima necessarily disappears from the political map. This is not the end of the world," he told UPI.
Kadima might therefore focus on its team of high-profile members that includes also Transport Minister Meir Sheetrit, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, and former head of the Shabak security agency, Avi Dichter, who is largely credited with reducing the number of Palestinian suicide bombing attacks.
Public opinion polls show strong support for Kadima, even if Sharon does not head it. A pollster for the Haaretz newspaper Thursday found that the party would win 40 mandates if Olmert heads it, and 38 if Livni is at the top. If Peres heads the list Kadima would win 42 mandates, but observers did not believe the other Kadima members, almost all former Likudniks would want Peres to be number one.
A fortnight ago pollster Mina Tsemach asked people whether they would vote Kadima even if Sharon does not head it. Sixty-four percent of the voters said yes, 30 percent said no, Yediot Aharonot reported.
The important fact is that Kadima "still has a chance" to occupy the center of the political map, Diskin said. That is the element that can sway the decisions.
"I don't know if having 20 mandates and occupying the political center is worse than having 30 mandates and not having the center. They (Kadima) still have a very, very good chance (of occupying the center)," he told UPI.
Sharon has been popular even though he did not detail his plans. Would the other Kadima members command that kind of trust?
"Maybe there is no clear talk but there is a message: A combination of (readiness for) concessions (to the Palestinians) and very clear and justified suspicion towards the other side. That is true of Sharon and of Zippi Livni," Diskin said
The developments would affect the peace process, he predicted. There is no such process, he said. Kadima, like Sharon, can continue talking of its adherence to the roadmap, the peace plan that the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations have presented. Now, after the withdrawal from Gaza, "it is the other side's turn to implement the roadmap," he said.
He did not believe Kadima would easily go for another unilateral withdrawal, but neither would Sharon, Diskin said.
