Many Arab members of Kadima, Labor did not vote for their own parties

The number of Arab voters who chose Kadima and Labor is much smaller than the number of Arab voters who registered with these parties and voted in their primaries, the final vote count for the 18th general elections reveals.

"The gap is the result of vote contractors," one Kadima activist told Haaretz. "These people use the primaries to curry favors within the party by getting all their friends to join on paper."

The activist, a legal practitioner, added: "This is a corrupt and contemptuous system. People join one party, and then join another party just to vote in the primaries, and they make this into a business.

The two activists who spoke to Haaretz said the fictitious member phenomenon is not unique to the Arab sector, but is much easier to detect there, because the vast majority of Arabs vote for Arab parties.

"The same people from the Arab sector join Labor to vote for Ehud Barak, then they vote for another candidate in Kadima, and then in Likud, also," the activist added.

Knesset members and ministers are aware of the situation, and cooperate with it, he said. "This is the root of all evil in Israeli politics, which are not so stable."

The vote contractors "go to neighbors, friends and relatives," the other Kadima activist said. The contractor usually refunds the membership fees of his recruits, he said.

Voting statistics from some Arab towns seem to support their claims.

Kadima's September 2008 primary election drew 385 voters in Dir Hanna. However, in the general elections, Kadima had nabbed only 107 voters - just over 25 percent of the people who had voted in the Kadima party primary.

Taibeh had 471 Kadima members who voted in the primary, but only 42 people voted for the party in the general election.

In examining the distribution of Arab votes for Labor, one encounters similar trends.

The Abu Karinat clan of the Negev produced 132 voters in Labor's December primary, but only 20 people, or 15 percent of the clan, voted for the party in the general election.

Iksal had 99 primary voters, compared to 29 Labor voters on Tuesday. Kseifa in the Negev had 195 Labor primary voters, but only 25 Labor voters in the general election.

Kadima officials said that the decision by the Labor-Kadima coalition to go ahead with the war in Gaza in December - which drew sharp condemnations from Israel's Arab minority - also had something to do with the decline.

The opposite trend

However, certain Arab towns such as Nazareth, Jaljulya, Baka al-Gharbiyeh and Jatt displayed the opposite trend - the number of Labor voters exceeded the number of registered party members.

In Druze towns, the number of voters for both parties exceeded the number of registered voters. The number of Labor voters in Druze towns was significantly higher than the number of Labor party members.