Mofaz: Likud likely to become marginal party without influence

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, a prime contender to head the Likud following the resignation of Tzachi Hanegbi as acting party chairman, said Wednesday, "there is no doubt that the Likud is currently in a very difficult position. It is likely to turn into ... a small, marginal party without much political influence and totally cut off from its real voters."

Mofaz said, however, that he was sure the Likud could get past this crisis and come out victorious. "I call on real Likud members, who are not just followers of [far-rightist] Moshe Feiglin, to come and vote en masse in order to save Likud from being pulverized."

Mofaz added that he was the only leader capable of returning sanity to the Likud and bringing back its voters.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's newly-formed Kadima party expressed satisfaction with the turbulent events in the premier's former party.

"We've dissembled the Likud," aides to Sharon said Wedensday after Hanegbi's dramatic resignation and defection to Kadima. "After Tzachi Hanegbi, they're in shock. He was the heart of the Likud and his leaving basically says that the Likud no longer exists in the Likud, it exists with Sharon."

Hanegbi, a confidant of Sharon's, submitted his resignation to the Likud on Wednesday, after 17 years in the party. At the same time, he announced that he was resigning his Knesset seat. "The mandate belongs to the Likud," he said.

Minister Danny Naveh will head a decision-making team of Likud ministers that will lead the party until elections to replace Hanegbi.

Likud members from peripheral towns defect to Peretz campSome 200 Likud members on Wednesday came out in support of Labor Chairman Amir Peretz at a rally held at the Labor party headquarters in Tel Aviv.

Among the surprise guests, which included mainly affiliates from peripheral towns, were a few mayors and Likud branch chairmen.

They announced their intention to vote for the Labor party and pledged to lend a helping hand in the campaign ahead.

Most of those who spoke out said the Likud's economic policy is what drove them away from the party.

"Bibi (Benjamin) Netanyahu was my friend, but he insulted my intelligence. The rationale that taking from the poor and giving it to the rich in the hope that they will want to give it back to the poor is wrong," Ya'akov Elbaz, former chairman of Likud's Ashdod branch, said.

"If they ask you," Peretz said, "tell them you have not left the Likud, but that the Likud has left you."