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Jerusalem: Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima party lost ground in opinion polls on Thursday, but still seemed on course to win March 28 national elections. The polls in the mass circulation Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv newspapers showed victory would be by a smaller margin than previously predicted, hurting Kadima's hopes of forming a stable coalition government with a minimal number of partners. The surveys found Kadima had slipped by between two to three seats to 36 or 37 seats in the 120-seat parliament. Thursday's newspaper polls found the centre-left Labour Party had strengthened to 21 seats after languishing for weeks at around 19 seats. The right-wing Likud party was down slightly with 14 seats, according to the polls.
Two ultranationalist parties, the National Union party and Yisrael Beitenu party, were up slightly in the polls, apparently at the expense of the Likud. Army radio, meanwhile, predicted that Kadima would win just 34 seats, with Labour on course for 20 and Likud 18. Kadima has steadily lost support since Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke on January 4 that left him in a coma. Earlier this week, Olmert set his hopes on winning more than 40 seats to give him greater leverage to form a government capable of implementing his proposal to set permanent borders for Israel by 2010.
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