"This is our place of work, too, not only Olmert's," a Kadima cabinet minister said yesterday in a cynical paraphrase of a line from the Thursday night speech to party leaders by their chairman, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. "Our aim now is to save Kadima," the minister continued, "with or without him." The sober remarks reflect the mood within Kadima. Even the MKs and ministers who are supporting Olmert in public view him not only as a prime minister who is living on borrowed time while waiting for the interim report of the Winograd Committee, they also see him as a party chairman whose future is clouded.

Olmert may have bought himself more time and calmed the party ranks, but the hiatus will be short-lived. The interim conclusions of the Winograd Committee examining the conduct of the war in Lebanon, which are slated for release next month, will mark a turning point for Olmert.

If the report's conclusions are unequivocal in saying Olmert was responsible for the mishandling of the war, Kadima ministers say they won't work to keep him in office.

	Advertisement

"He'll have to go, and we'll begin to rehabilitate ourselves," one senior party official said. "We certainly won't follow him into another election - we're not suicidal. In the meantime, until Winograd, we'll leave him be."

Polls within Kadima reflect what has been clear to all for weeks: Olmert is the main reason for the party's dive in the polls, and currently he is a burden on it.

"Olmert said he knows he's an unpopular prime minister, but he didn't say the party has become an unpopular party because of him, and that he in effect has crushed us," a senior Kadima figure said. "If Kadima wants to live, it must show the public that Kadima and Olmert are two different things, and that Olmert's failure is not Kadima's failure - that the party has excellent leadership alternatives."