WHEN a political party whose name translates as “union” suddenly splits families, it is clearly in crisis. The plummeting fortunes of Likud, which has been in government in Israel for 22 of the past 28 years, has divided husband from wife among its most stalwart supporters.

The catalyst was Ariel Sharon’s dramatic departure from the party he helped to establish 32 years ago. Many of its leading lights joined the Prime Minister under his new Kadima — Hebrew for “forward” — banner.

On Monday Likud will hold its leadership election. Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, the hawkish former Prime Minister, is widely favoured over Silvan Shalom, the Foreign Minister. Victory for Mr Netanyahu, though, will only confirm Likud’s lurch to the Right, and present him with the husk of a party that just weeks ago boasted 40 of the Knesset’s 120 seats and headed the ruling coalition.

Opinion polls indicate that Likud is headed for a dismal showing in the general election on March 28. More than a third of Likud members say they will boycott the leadership primary; almost as many will favour other parties on election day. One leadership contender even jumped ship. Before his surprise move to Kadima, Shaul Mofaz, the Defence Minister, promised in a letter to 130,000 party members never to leave his “home”.

“The most attractive part of Likud was Ariel Sharon, and he’s going to turn that against them now,” Avraham Diskin, a political scientist at Hebrew University, in Jerusalem, said.

Advisers say that the Prime Minister is out to drive Likud back to its roots, the marginal party that was Menachem Begin’s Herut movement. Mr Sharon was the driving force that brought four parties and various offshoots together to form Likud in 1973. Mr Begin became their first Prime Minister four years later. Now, Likud is preparing to return to its ideological roots that will probably leave it a right-wing rump still riven by bickering.

By way of illustration, two Likud central committee members with stalls in the Mehane Yehuda market, in Jerusalem, are at war. Avraham Levy, 56, adorns his fruit stall with Begin and Bibi pictures and is sticking with the party. Tzion, 55, his brother, quit to follow Mr Sharon. Yaron Tzidkihau, 47, has a bigger problem. The falafel stallholder and his wife, Ruth, 45, had been fervent Likud supporters since they were teenagers; but she has jumped to Kadima.

PARTY HISTORY

• Likud was formed in 1973
• Menachem Begin was its first Prime Minister in 1977
• It worked as a coalition of factions led by Begin’s Herut until 1988, when Herut was dissolved and Likud became one party
• In 1981 it won 48 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, 19 in 1999, then in 2003 recovered to win 38
• It insists on Israeli sovereignty over Greater Israel — the land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean, including the West Bank and Gaza
• It also insists that Jerusalem is the “eternal, united capital of the state of Israel”

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