Netanyahu Awaits Absentee Count

JERUSALEM: Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu's political future awaits a Friday count of some 154,000 absentee ballots. With 99.9 percent of the vote counted, Netanyahu maintains a razor-thin lead of a few thousand votes over Prime Minister Shimon Peres. In an election many saw as a referendum on the country's peace process, Israel appears almost evenly divided. An unofficial count shows Netanyahu with 50.3 percent of the vote to 49.7 percent for Peres. Israel's course toward peace has been pursued aggressively by both Peres and his Labor Party predecessor, Yitzak Rabin, assassinated last November. Netanyahu has come to grudgingly accept the accords granting the Palestinian Authority limited self- rule in Gaza and the West Bank, but opposes Palestinian statehood or trading occupied land for peace with Israel's neighbors. He has moderated his tough stance on the PLO, saying recently that he would meet with Yasser Arafat. Despite the election's dramic turn, Jerusalem bureau chief Lisa Beyer says a Netanyahu victory would not alter Israeli policy, at least for now: "In the short term, not much will change. There are no talks with Syria at the moment, and there is a lull in negotiations with the Palestinians. The real change will come in the medium and long term. Netanyahu clearly intends to take a much tougher line in the peace process." Despite the high stakes, the campaign has been run in an uncharacteristically restrained manner for the usually tempestuous world of Israeli politics. Netanyahu had closed quickly on Peres in the last week, gaining as much as seven percentage points in some polls. "Nothing is final yet," cautions Beyer. "A Likud victory does look probable, though." The only way for Peres to salvage victory is to capture about 57 percent of the remaining ballots. Says Beyer: "There is no reason to believe he will."