Скачать или смотреть WRAP Israeli leaders voting, adds Sharon's son voting

(28 Mar 2006)
Jerusalem
1. Acting Prime Minister and Kadima leader Ehud Olmert casts ballot
2. Olmert with his wife after voting
Nokdim Settlement, West Bank
3. Leader of Yisrael Beitenu, Avigdor Lieberman voting
Tel Aviv
4. Shimon Peres dropping vote in box
5. SOUNDBITE: (English) Shimon Peres, elder statesman and former Israeli prime minister:
"I think the public feels there is a need for a centre party that can take decisions, that can handle the very complicated issues and I hope that we shall succeed."
Sderot
6. Labor Party leader Amir Peretz casting vote
Jerusalem
7. Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu voting
8. Netanyahu leaving
9. SOUNDBITE: (Hebrew) Benjamin Netanyahu, Likud leader
(Q: How do you think the election will go?)
"It's hard to say. People are returning to Likud, people understand. They are putting their doubts and other considerations aside and are coming home to the Likud. What the extent of this will be we will have to wait until this evening to see."
Dorot, South Israel
10. Ariel Sharon's son, Omri, voting then leaving
STORYLINE:
Israeli leaders cast their votes on Tuesday in an election seen as a referendum on the country's future in the West Bank, with acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pushing for a unilateral withdrawal from much of the territory.
Olmert voted at the Beit Chinuch school in Jerusalem just after polls opened at opened at 7 a.m. local (0500 GMT).
Olmert is expected to win a minority victory of the 120 Knesset votes, then form a ruling coalition.
Barring an unexpected right-wing surge, Israelis were expected to give a green light to Olmert's unilateralist plan to separate from most Palestinians, using the barrier as a border and retaining huge settlement blocs in the West Bank.
Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of the right-wing Yisrael Beitenu ("Israel Is Our Home") Party voted in the settlement town of Nokdim on Tuesday.
Lieberman, a former Netanyahu adviser and West Bank settler, opposes territorial concessions to Palestinians.
He has said he wants to redraw Israel's map by transferring many Israeli Arab towns to Palestinian jurisdiction and annexing large Jewish settlements in the West Bank to Israel. Some 1.4 million of Israel's 7 million citizens are Arabs.
Lieberman is the first leader of a high-profile party to espouse a population swap.
Israeli human rights activists and Arab politicians have denounced Lieberman's agenda as racist.
But his promise of a quick-fix solution of the intractable conflict with the Palestinians and his appeal among Russian immigrants like himself are poised to transform his party from a marginal group into a major political force.
If acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wins as expected, he has said he would only govern with parties that accept his plan to withdraw from some of the West Bank, dismantling dozens of small Jewish settlements there, annexing the larger ones and drawing final borders in the next four years.
Lieberman, who lives in the Nokdim settlement likely marked for removal under Olmert's plan, has not ruled out joining an Olmert-led government, but has said he would not agree to further unilateral pullbacks.
Elder statesman and former prime minister Shimon Peres cast his vote in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.
Peres who joined Ariel Sharon's Kadima Party after losing the Labor leadership contest last year, is supporting acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who is pushing for a unilateral withdrawal from much of the territory.
Labor Party leader Amir Peretz voted in his hometown in southern Israel, smiling for cameras and flanked by his wife as he cast his ballot.

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