Kadima: The Problems

This weekend, Ha'Aretz ran an interview with Kadima and opposition leader Tzipi Livni that revealed many of the problems present in the party. What it reveals is a party with no defining or uniting ideology and a party leader so scared of losing her leadership position that she is unwilling to defend any vision for the party. She was afraid to denounce undemocratic initiatives that threatened the basic foundations of democracy in Israel. And according to the interviewer polls indicate that if elections were held today, half of the party's 2009 voters would vote for other parties. This would make Kadima a medium-sized party comparable in size to Avigdor Leibermann's Israel Beitenu party or to Labor. And there is clear fear that if she loses the leadership and former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz becomes party leader that he will return the party to the Likud after breaking it up. Mofaz emerges from the interview as the typical Israeli general politician--interested in holding a ministry in the government whatever its ideology and makeup, not interested in ideology and with no real vision, in other words a security technocrat.