NEWS ANALYSIS : Israel’s Likud Party: Who’s on 1st?

An odd uncertainty is dogging the reelection campaign of Israel’s ruling right-wing Likud Party in the early going: Just who is running for prime minister?

Officially, of course, it’s Yitzhak Shamir, the current prime minister and party leader.

But in spite of efforts to stitch together a facade of party unity, potential successors to the aging leader are spending as much time campaigning against each other--and even Shamir--as against Yitzhak Rabin, the standard-bearer of the Labor Party, the leading center-left opposition.

The internal disputes center on the feeling that whatever the outcome of the June vote, a fatigued Shamir may resign shortly after the vote or after a new government is formed--with or without his party. Concern over early polls that show Rabin and Labor in the lead has even set party faithful mumbling that Shamir should step aside before the election.

“Likud is losing a great deal of time and potential by all this uncertainty,” said a party insider. “The feeling is not upbeat.”

Likud has a history of Chicken Little moods, and it is far too early in the campaign to make reliable forecasts. Israeli polls, regarded as notoriously inaccurate, say that four of 10 voters have yet to make up their minds.

Aspiring to attract security-conscious as well as dovish Israelis, Labor is focusing its campaign on the personality of Rabin, viewed as both tough on Arabs and willing to compromise at peace talks.

The Likud power struggle makes it difficult for the party to counter with a focus on the 76-year-old Shamir; even his own followers doubt that he will complete another four-year term if elected. “Everyone has decided that Shamir won’t stay on, if for no other reason than his age,” said a senior government official.

The succession stew was thought to be under control when Shamir persuaded Foreign Minister David Levy to rejoin Likud, which Levy had quit when he lost his No. 2 party position--and succession prospects--to Defense Minister Moshe Arens. Arens is upset, press reports say, because Shamir enticed Levy back with pledges to put Levy supporters in key party positions.

Housing Minister Ariel Sharon also wants to succeed Shamir, as does Benny Begin, the son of the late Menachem Begin, who first led Likud to national power in 1977.

Arens and Begin supporters have been floating proposals for Shamir to step down, but Shamir assistants insist he has no intention of resigning now or later.

The next prime minister is expected to preside over a key era in Israeli history. The country’s population grew by 10% in the past two years as a wave of immigrants from the former Soviet Union arrived. The pace of arrivals has slowed, but the economic absorption of the newcomers will color Israel’s development for years.

Israel has yet to feel its way into the post-Cold War world. The next Israeli leader will have to redesign U.S.-Israel relations, which had been centered on the Israelis’ now-diminished strategic importance.

Finally, Middle East peace talks, which have languished through five inconclusive rounds, are expected to enter substantive stages later this year. Shamir, a reluctant participant, is finding it difficult to play both herald of compromise and keeper of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Shamir may offer municipal elections to the Palestinians to show his commitment to peace. But he is constrained by fears of repelling right-wing voters, a senior official said.

At the same time, Shamir insists that the peace talks can make progress, even while Israel holds onto all the land and he continues his pledge to maintain the pace of his controversial colonization effort in the West Bank and Gaza.