Former Prime Minister and current opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu is best positioned to gain political strength in the wake of Ariel Sharon’s stroke, in what may well be one of Israel’s most fractious election campaigns.
Netanyahu, 56, leads the Likud Party, which Sharon recently abandoned. A hard-liner, Netanyahu resigned from the Cabinet in August in protest of Sharon’s decision to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
“He’s had the job before, he’s charismatic, and, really, there is no one else out there,” said Ron Torossian, a former Likud spokesman who is now a public-relations executive in New York.
Netanyahu, who at 46 became Israel’s youngest prime minister in 1996, made a dramatic comeback as finance minister before quitting over the Gaza pullout.
By law, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert can stay in power for 100 days, but the March 28 elections are expected to proceed as scheduled regardless of what happens to Sharon.
The jockeying for position is expected to intensify in Sharon’s Kadima Party, which currently has no formal slate of candidates.