A blonde former Mossad secret agent is on course to become Israel’s first woman prime minister since Golda Meir 30 years ago, according to polls before today’s Kadima party internal election to choose a successor to Ehud Olmert, the outgoing disgraced Prime Minister.

The centre-right party is choosing a new leader at a critical time, when the country is feeling the increasing threat from Iran and trying to reach crucial peace deals with the Palestinians and Syria.

Tzipi Livni, the 50-year-old Foreign Minister, could become Israel’s second female leader, according to polls that show her scraping past the 40 per cent threshold of Kadima party voters. That is the majority she would need to avoid a run-off against her only real rival, Shaul Mofaz, the Iranian-born Transport Minister who led Israel’s efforts to crush the Palestinian intifada.

The ballot will be the first time the centre-right party, formed by Ariel Sharon, has held a leadership contest. Polls show that Ms Livni may follow Golda Meir’s career path into the prime minister’s bureau. Her once comfortable lead appeared to be waning against the hawkish Mr Mofaz, who, as Mr Sharon’s chief of staff during the intifada, oversaw Israel’s invasion of the West Bank in 2002.

Times Archive, 1948: End of Palestine mandate

The Jewish National Council in Tel Aviv has proclaimed a new Jewish State of Israel. Mr Ben Gurion has been made Prime Minister

• Archive Topic: Establishment of the State of Israel

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Pollsters are nervous about predicting an outright victory for Ms Livni, a mother-of-two who is popular with the electorate. While surveys of Kadima members hint that she is riding high, Mr Mofaz enjoys widespread support among party organisers and recruiters, who may be able to rally a turnout sufficient to see him take office.

If an outright winner emerges in the first round Mr Olmert is expected to resign quickly to carry on the fight to clear his name on a series of corruption charges that have dogged his term in office and curbed his ability to make progress on the peace talks that were revived last year. While Mr Olmert has made great efforts to establish important personal ties with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, Ms Livni has led Israel’s negotiating team. Both sides in the talks have sworn themselves to secrecy to allow all issues to be discussed fully, without public pressure on either side.

When the US consul in Jerusalem disclosed recently that the secret talks had agreed in principle to return East Jerusalem to the Palestinians, Mr Mofaz – who was a late-comer to the Kadima party – was quick to attack his rival and reinforce his image as a tough-minded rightwinger.

“This is nothing less than a scandal,” said Mr Mofaz, who moved to Israel from Iran when he was nine, in 1957.

“The future of Israel’s capital is not a matter for secret negotiations. I will not lend a hand to harming Jerusalem. Beyond Tzipi Livni’s ethical failure, her lack of leadership and the absence of courage to tell the public clearly what her position is, this is a strategic mistake that will harm the security and future of the state of Israel.”

The row reinforced the divisions in public image between the two – Mr Mofaz, a career soldier, is seen by many as a safe pair of hands but a man unlikely to make any bold gestures that might break the decades-old stalemate in the conflict.

Ms Livni is regarded as less experienced, but willing to take risks for a potential high return. The high-risk for high-return strategy was reflected in the rest of what the US diplomat, Jake Walles, said – that Israel and the Palestinians had agreed to a permanent status arrangement based on the 1967 lines in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem and in parts of the Dead Sea, in a peace deal to be unveiled by the beginning of January, at the end of the Bush presidency.

While Israeli officials played down the comments, the reaction demonstrated the forces arrayed against Ms Livni and her potential willingness to compromise. The ultra-Orthodox party Shas, which Mr Olmert kept in his coalition by offering high-profile Cabinet posts, has said that it would bolt if dividing Jerusalem was put on the negotiating table, possibly triggering a general election by next spring.

Rivals for power

Tzipi Livni
Charismatic lawyer who served as a lieutenant in the Israeli army and as an agent for Mossad, the intelligence and special operations service, in Paris in her twenties. Some reports claim that she was actively involved in hunting down terrorists in Europe, others that she was merely a front deployed in a Paris safe house and used by the spy agency to maintain an appearance of normality. Her parents were both members of the Irgun, the hardline Jewish militant organisation that blew up the British Mandate’s administrative headquarters in the King David Hotel in 1946. She now heads Israel’s team negotiating for a two-state solution with the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah.

Ms Livni is married to an advertising executive and has two children

Shaul Mofaz
A tough-talking general who leapt straight from an army career to become Defence Minister under Ariel Sharon, after having commanded the retaking of the West Bank from the Palestinian Authority in 2002 at the height of the Palestinian intifada. Known for his hawkish stance, he attracted much attention this summer when he warned his native Iran that Israel would launch an attack if it did not halt its nuclear programme.

“If Iran continues its programme to develop nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The window of opportunity has closed,” he said in June.

Mr Mofaz is married with four children. He fought as a paratrooper in the Six Day War

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