Hours after polling booths opened in Israel's prime ministerial election, the only piece of paper Kobi Elbaz planned to fill out yesterday was a cheque for the repairs on his car.
"If I thought it would make any difference, I would vote. But I don't. I have other things to do today like picking up my car," he said as he strolled on a Tel Aviv beach.
A smattering of other Israelis made the most of a public holiday declared for the election and the balmy weather and jogged along the shoreline promenade.
Opinion polls forecast a landslide victory for Likud party leader Ariel Sharon over Prime Minister Ehud Barak, although the incumbent prime minister's campaign team said its own surveys suggested the right-winger now led by less than 10 percent.
Israeli election committee figures showed that 43 percent of eligible voters had cast ballots by 4pm compared to 52 percent at the same time in the 1999 election.
Voters have until 10pm to register their preference for Sharon or Barak, who trailed his rival by as much as 20 percentage points in opinion polls before election day.
For the first time in Israeli history, the election is for prime minister only and will not affect the Knesset or parliament.
Experts predict up to 15 percent of voters will cast a blank ticket or stay away from ballot booths, disillusioned with the candidates and anticipating a general election once the victor fails to forge a workable coalition in the fractious parliament.
"This is the first time that we are expecting to see such a large number of Israelis saying they won't vote," Professor Efraim Inbar of Tel Aviv's Bar Ilan University said.
Among those expected to abstain from voting in large numbers are Israeli Arabs, who blame Barak for the killing of 13 of their brethren by police during sympathy protests with Palestinians at the start of the four-month-old uprising against Israeli occupation.
Leaders of the Arab community, which comprises around 12 percent of the electorate, have called Barak's expression on Sunday of "deep sorrow" for the deaths too little, too late.
Loudspeaker cars have circulated in Arab towns in recent days calling residents to boycott the election, in a move which could seal Barak's fate. The Israeli Arabs were a key voting block in his landslide 1999 election victory.
Many leftists disappointed by Barak's failure to seal Middle East peace are also expected not to vote, as are some Sharon backers who think their candidate's seemingly invincible double-digit opinion poll lead makes their ballot unnecessary.
The election may also fail to attract voters who believe the fractious standing parliament will make it impossible for the winner to govern effectively.
"I usually vote towards the right, but I'm not going to vote today because they can't do anything if the parties remain the same. We'll be having a general election in six months," said Oren Barat, 27, from the West Bank settlement of Givat Zeev.
Urging every voter to "exercise a citizen's duty," an editorial in the left-leaning Ha'artez newspaper cautioned that a non-vote would bolster the chance of the hawkish Ariel Sharon winning a landslide.
"Narrowing the gap between Sharon and Barak probably will not prevent the Likud candidate from setting up a government, but it will make it clear to him that a majority of the Israeli people is not interested in any harsh policies against the Palestinians," it said.
"It will also show Sharon that in spite of disappointments in the negotiations and in the violence in the territories, support for the policies of the right is not absolute."
The former defense minister, who is reviled by Arabs for leading Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, is expected to adopt a hard line in floundering peace talks.
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