Yitzhak Rabin is the favorite candidate for the office of prime minister in the next elections, according to a poll taken by the Hanoch and Rafi Smith Research Center during the last week of June.
The pollsters asked a representative sample of 1,100 Jewish voters, “Whom do you prefer to head the two major parties?” Under Israel’s electoral system, the head of the winning party forms the new government.
Rabin, a former Labor Party prime minister who served as defense minister in the last government, was the top choice of 34 percent of the sample.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, the Likud leader, received 19 percent of the mock vote, and 17 percent chose Labor Party leader Shimon Peres, Rabin’s political rival.
But those who identified themselves as Labor Party voters chose Peres over Rabin.
Shamir’s closest rival for Likud chairman was Deputy Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, one of Likud’s younger generation of Knesset members, who also was supported by 17 percent of the respondents.
Housing Minister Ariel Sharon, probably the most controversial Likud leader, was endorsed by 11 percent of the sample.
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