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Morning News

Israel Decides: Elections Tomorrow; Latest Polls Show Sharon in Lead

Aired February 5, 2001 - 10:30 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The official campaigns are finished, but the race for Israel's top government seat is certainly not over. Israelis are set to go to the polls tomorrow to choose their next prime minister. And the latest surveys show hard-liner Ariel Sharon still leading his opponent, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and by a wide margin.

CNN's Jerrold Kessel is in Jerusalem this morning.

He joins us now with the very latest developments of this contest -- Jerrold.

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Leon, race decided -- that's the view of the pollsters, because they're putting Ehud Barak still trailing Ariel Sharon, his right-wing challenger, by 18 or 19 percentage points, depending on which of the two major polls are published today.

But a key issue still remains of just how big the voter turnout will be, and it'll be a key matter for both contestants, perhaps not in deciding the outcome, but certainly deciding the future after Mr. Sharon wins, as he's predicted now to do now by just abut everybody in that race.

Now, the voting's actually already under way in one sector. That is in the Israeli army. The soldiers serving in bases and camps within Israel -- in the Golan Heights, in the -- parts of the West Bank and Gaza, where Israel still has military control -- and they have been voting yesterday and today. They'll finish their voting today. We're told there, by the army, that the voting turnout has been brisk among the soldiers.

But it'll be a key tomorrow, the degree of voter turnout. Ehud Barak, the prime minister who is making his last campaign appeals to supporters and those what that are among the disenchanted -- his side of the political spectrum normally, but have said they must just stay away from the vote because of their dismay at his performance on -- on various fronts. And that's been Mr. Barak's task: to try to encourage them to get out and to vote.

Ariel Sharon has been campaigning much less energetically. That's been part of the whole strategy of the Sharon campaign: to do as little as possible, to say as little as possible other than to reassure Israeli voters and to let Mr. Barak be defeated. That's the way the Sharon campaign has gone.

And Mr. Barak, on the offensive on this last day, saying it is a matter of war or peace, this election. No less than, that the way that Mr. Barak is positioning it, but the Sharon camp says that's not true at all. Mr. Sharon will also try to talk peace with the Palestinians and the other Arab-Israels -- other Arab neighbors -- only he says he'll do it from a position of strength once -- only once -- he secures Israel's position.

And that seems to be the way this campaign has gone: that whereas Mr. Barak is positing it as peace versus war, the Israeli voters seem to be going for the issue of security. If anything, Mr. Sharon's ability to convince these Israelis he can provide a greater degree of security -- that seems to be the issue which is winning him the election, if the pollsters are to be believed, and also neutralizing the fears which many Israelis have had about having someone like Ariel Sharon as their leader -- Leon.

HARRIS: Jerrold Kessel, reporting live this morning, from Tel Aviv -- actually, from Jerusalem, this morning.

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