Kadima Still Favoured As Israel Goes to Polls

Israelis are voting today in a general election that many expect will elect a government with a mandate to set the final borders of the Jewish state.

Opinion polls suggest Kadima, the party set up by the stricken Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, will see off the opposition, unless there is an unexpected surge to the right.

The acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, of Kadima, voted as the polls opened amid high security at 7am local time (06.00 BST).

"Go out and vote, all of Israel," a smiling Mr Olmert said, referring to predictions of a low turnout because many Israelis see the result as a foregone conclusion.

Some reports suggested one-third of the 4.5 million voters might not attend any of the 8,276 polling stations that have been set up across the country, most of them in schools.

The first exit polls are expected after voting ends at 10pm (21.00 BST).

Mr Olmert has called the election a referendum on his controversial plans to withdraw unilaterally from Israeli settlements in the West Bank if the Palestinians, and their new Hamas government, became "partners for peace".

In a newspaper opinion piece published today, Mr Olmert said no Jewish settlements would be left east of Israel's West Bank security wall if, as expected, Kadima became the main element of a new coalition government.

Commentators said the article was Mr Olmert's clearest statement yet regarding the fate of dozens of small Jewish settlements across the West Bank. He plans to move around 70,000 settlers in smaller sites to a larger settlement, which Israel will annex.

In the article in the Yediot Ahronot daily, Mr Olmert wrote: "We will determine the line of the security fence, and we will make sure that no Jewish settlements will be left on the other side of the fence. Drawing the final borders is our obligation as leaders and as a society."

Polls just before the election showed Kadima, founded by Mr Sharon in November, maintaining a wide lead, though slightly reduced from two months ago. Mr Olmert took over the party when Mr Sharon suffered a stroke in January; he is still in a coma.

The polls suggest Kadima will win about 35 seats in the 120-seat Knesset - the parliament - the Labour party will win about 20 seats, and the Likud party will win around 15 seats.

Likud, the hard-line party Mr Sharon abandoned, is now headed by the former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During the campaign, Mr Netanyahu warned that unilateral pullbacks would simply bring Hamas closer to Israel, and the Labour leader Amir Peretz complained that the Kadima approach would kill prospects for peace talks with the Palestinians.

Kadima is expected, however, to join Labour, along with smaller parties, in forming a coalition in favour of Mr Olmert's plan.

No party has ever won an absolute majority in the Israeli parliament, a situation perpetuated by the country's system of proportional representation. Instead of voting for candidates, Israelis vote for parties, and the parliament is divided up among the latter in proportion to the number of votes they receive. About a dozen parties were expected to pass the 2% minimum threshold of votes and enter the new parliament.

"This is perhaps the most important election in all of Israel's life," said Mordechai Aviv, 76, who was among about 10 people lined up outside a Jerusalem polling station before voting started. "We are going to separate between us and the Arabs. This is very important for us to continue having a Jewish state."

At an Arab summit in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, appealed to Israeli voters to "vote for peace".

Speaking to the Associated Press, he said: "We hope that the Israeli voters will direct their vote to peace, for parliament members who are looking for peace, who want peace, because there is no future for us and for them, there is no security for us and for them without peace."

Many Palestinians see Mr Olmert's plan as a bid to deny them a viable state and as a theft of land occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. Israel began its "disengagement" process last summer by withdrawing from the Gaza Strip.

Israeli troops kill militant

Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian militant this morning during an exchange of fire in a village near the West Bank town of Jenin.

The Palestinian security sources said Israeli troops and the gunman from the Islamic Jihad militant group exchanged fire near the gunman's home, and that he was killed.

Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for the most recent suicide bombings in Israel.