Voting at a Jerusalem school RELATED VIDEO A major issue this year has been the economy. Israel is in a recession, and that has hurt Netanyahu. CNN's Richard Blystone explains. Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Richard Blystone reports on the most decorated man in Israel. Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Jerrold Kessel reports on the election in Israel Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K

May 17, 1999
Web posted at: 7:07 a.m. EDT (1107 GMT)

In this story: Candidate exodus hurts Netanyahu Poll official predicts 'landslide' Netanyahu: Barak made deal with Palestinians Parties vie for parliament seats RELATED STORIES, SITES

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Across Israel, voters are casting ballots Monday in a general election pitting right-wing incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against his center-left Labor Party challenger, Ehud Barak.

By 1 p.m. local time (1300), 29 percent of Israeli voters had cast their ballots, the Central Elections commission said.

Opinion polls and analysts have predicted that Barak, a career military man likely to revive peacemaking efforts with the Palestinians, will unseat Netanyahu.

Barak undertook last minute blitzes in each of Israel's four major cities on Monday. Netanyahu started his day with a prayer stop at Judaism's holiest site, the Western Wall.

As Israel's 4.3 million voters go to the 7,300 polling stations, in addition to choosing the prime minister, they will also elect a new parliament.

Polls close at 10 p.m. (3 p.m. EDT). CNN will broadcast live exit reports when the polls close. The polling stations opened at 7 a.m. (midnight EDT).

With the last two minor candidates dropping out Sunday, the contest was to be settled in a single ballot Monday. Netanyahu had hoped to push the race into a runoff, giving him two more weeks to campaign.

"There is only one poll that is important. That is the actual casting of votes," Barak said Sunday, commenting on surveys showing him winning the one-round showdown against Likud's Netanyahu.

Netanyahu said opinion polls have been wrong before.

RELATED AUDIO: After voting, Netanyahu was asked by a reporter about his stop earlier Monday at the Western Wall 192K / 13 sec. AIFF or WAV sound Barak comments on his chances after voting: 224K / 20 sec. AIFF or WAV sound

"We're going to surprise people. We're going to determine the outcome of this thing, and we're going to win," Netanyahu said Sunday.

If Netanyahu were defeated, he would remain in office as a caretaker prime minister until his successor has formed a government. The winner has 45 days to do that.

The 11th-hour Sunday pullout of Center Party leader Yitzhak Mordechai and ultranationalist Benny Begin spared Israel the prospect of a June 1 runoff if no one won more than 50 percent of the vote in the Monday election.

Israeli election officials said Sunday they will not count ballots cast for the candidates who dropped out.

Analysts said the absence of a runoff denies Netanyahu time he desperately needs to engineer a come-from-behind victory.

Mordechai, a former defense chief who trailed badly in opinion polls, asked his supporters to vote for Barak. Begin, a defector from Likud who was never given any chance of winning, pointedly did not endorse Netanyahu, 49.

Opinion polls released Sunday forecast Barak, a 57-year-old former army chief, would get between 52 and 55.5 percent of the vote.

Avi Dagani of the Geocartographia polling institute predicted Barak would win more votes than Netanyahu from the 700,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

"There could be a landslide," he said on Channel Two.

Analysts have said the largely secular newcomers, many of whom supported Netanyahu in the 1996 election, have moved toward Barak after being turned off by the incumbent's alliance with religious parties.

Israeli Arabs are also expected to line up behind Barak after Saturday's withdrawal of Israeli Arab candidate Azmi Bishara.

Barak has promised to bring new momentum to the Palestinian peace process and eventual implementation of the U.S.-brokered accords that his party predecessors signed with the PLO in 1993.

He said Israeli voters were rejecting "Netanyahu's way, which has led us to this stalemate.... Our way is unity. We have a real chance for unifying the people."

Netanyahu, who froze peace accords, has painted Monday's vote as a battle between his camp and what he called a left-wing alliance that would dangerously cede land to the Palestinians.

"Elect a left-wing government under Barak or Likud under me," he told reporters.

He accused Barak of striking a deal that had the "blessing and support" of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat in order to get the Arab candidate to quit the race.

In addition to the prime ministerial ballot, Israel's voters will choose from a list of candidates for the country's 120-member parliament.

More than 30 parties are vying for election. No single party has ever won an outright parliamentary majority. Alongside Netanyahu's Likud and Barak's Labor Party, there are three parties representing immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

Other parties include one whose platform is to legalize marijuana, another advocating meditation and a women's rights party led by a former beauty queen.

Reuters contributed to this report.