MIDDLE EAST: Israel goes to the polls today with jittery politicians scrambling to rally last-minute support, mindful of an unusually volatile electorate and unreliable eve-of-election polls.
With the traditional Israeli party system in turmoil, pollsters are having to work more than ever in the dark, and different eve-of-ballot surveys predicted widely different results.
Acting prime minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima party, while retaining a lead over all its rivals, slipped in the last opinion polls to 34 to 36 seats out of the 120-seat Knesset (parliament).
Such a drop - from an initial peak of 40 seats - is still enough for the centre-right party to head the next coalition government, but would leave it on shakier ground to unilaterally withdraw from remote Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank while expanding the largest illegal blocs.
Mass-circulation Israeli daily newspaper Ma'ariv reported that Kadima campaign managers are also troubled by reports that astrologers have predicted a "crushing failure" for the party.
The leftist Labor Party, under the new leadership of former trade unionist Amir Peretz, is predicted in the latest polls to net as many as 21 seats and as few as 17.
Labor has suffered from the recent defection to Kadima of its veteran chairman Shimon Peres, and party activists had expressed concerns that Mr Peretz's emphasis on social and economic issues was not registering with an electorate that traditionally votes on security or national issues.
However, a late surge in the polls as well as recent findings that Peretz is the most popular of the leaders has boosted the party and appears to have justified Peretz's street-level campaign.
A universally poor showing is predicted for the right-wing Likud party, from which Israel's now-comatose prime minister Ariel Sharon broke to form Kadima just months before his debilitating stroke last January.
Polls show Likud's leader, the former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is the least trusted of the politicians despite being viewed as the most charismatic.
His platform of opposition to occupied West Bank withdrawals failed to woo back former Likud voters who defected to Kadima or other extreme-right parties such as the Russian immigrant-based Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home), which could take between seven and 10 seats.
The latest polls show Likud on between 12 and 14 seats, down from the 40 it held under Sharon in the last elections.
Among the more macabre efforts to entice voters was the reported prophecy by the spiritual leader of the largest conservative Jewish religious party, Shas, that his supporters will go to heaven while those who vote Kadima today will go to hell.
The volatility of the polls is exacerbated by "floating" voters and a turnout predicted to be as low as 65 per cent.
Incoming Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh yesterday sent a message to western powers calling for talks to reach a "just peace" in the Middle East. He did not mention Israel by name.