(28 Jan 2003)
Tel Aviv, Israel
1. Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, leader of Shinui partry walking with entourage
2. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew and English) Tommy Lapid, Shinui party leader:
Hebrew: "Hello everybody. You're making a mess of the place. My neighbours will throw me out."
(Q: What is your message to the Israeli voters today?)
English: "To vote for me (laughs). Very simple. Yesh. (sic) Do you know what 'yesh' means? It means 'yes'."
(Q: Are you going into a coalition?)
English: "This depends on Mr Sharon and Mr Miztna. We will join a national coalition"
3. Lapid arrives at polling station
4. Lapid at registration desk
5. Close up of his identity card being checked
6. Various of Lapid voting and leaving
West Jerusalem
7. Israeli soldier outside at polling station
8. Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives to cast vote in elections
9. Netanyahu at registration desk
10. Various of Netanyahu voting
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Foreign Minister
"We'll let the prime minister form a government. The important thing that you see today is we have here democratic elections which is unusual in the Middle East. For example you don't have such elections in our immediate neighbourhood here, in the Palestinian Authority. That is what you see today - democracy."
West Jerusalem
12. Israeli President Moshe Katsav arrives to cast vote in elections
13. Katsav's wife Gila voting
14. Various of Moshe Katsav voting
15. Katsav leaves
Nazareth, Israel - 28/1/03 - APTN
16. Azmi Bishara, Israeli Arab Member of the Knesset putting ballot in box
17. Bishara walking away from polling station
Ramallah
18. Pull out from poster of Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat to wide of security outside his headquarters
19. Arafat walking out of his headquarters
20. SOUNDBITE (English) Yasser Arafat, Palestinian Leader:
"I hope so, I hope that they vote for the peace of the brave which we had signed in the White House after Mideast conference with my partner (assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak) Rabin who had been killed by these fanatic groups in Israel."
21. Arafat leaves
STORYLINE
Israeli party leaders went to polling stations under tight security on Tuesday.
Tommy Lapid is the leader of the Shinui Party, which may hold the balance of power in the Knesset.
Polls have shown his secular party will become the third largest, replacing its rival Shas, a party that champions Jews of Middle Eastern descent and pushes for strengthening the religious character of Israel.
Even though Shinui is less popular than both Likud and Labor, it is still expected to be significant for its influence of the ruling coalition.
Israeli President Moshe Katsav and Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voted in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu told journalists at the polling station that Israel benefitted from elections but Palestinians didn't have such democracy.
Azmi Bishara, the Balad Israeli-Arab Party's member of the Knesset, voted in the northern Israeli-Arab town of Nazareth.
Although some of Israel's one point two (M) million Arab citizens say they plan to boycott the election, there is still support for Bishara and Ahmed Tibi of another major Israeli Arab party, Hadash.
Eleven Israeli judges recently ruled that Bishara and Tibi could stand again in this coming election, in a ruling that was viewed by many Israeli Arab citizens as a test of how the Jewish majority relates to them.
Arafat fears that any support given to Mitzna would lose him support at home and undermine the Labor leader's credibility among Israelis.
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