In less than a week, Israel’s ruling party, Kadima, will be choosing a successor to its current leader Ehud Olmert. According to polls conducted last week, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has a significant lead over her main rival–Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz–among Kadima voters. But if you think this election is a done deal, think again.

The politics of Kadima primaries are more about retail politics than they are about masses going to the polls. Haaretz political correspondent Mazal Mualem details the reasons for which Livni should still be (and is still) worried:

Only 15 percent of Kadima members signed up as individuals while most are represented as members of trade unions and workers organizations who joined collectively.

Since Mofaz is considered to be much better at political organization than Livni, there’s reason to suspect that Kadima might surprise both pollsters and the public by picking the less nationally-popular candidate. Mualem reports that Mofaz “stepped up efforts to win municipal workers organizations’ support ahead of the primary. Livni put less effort in such maneuvers”:

Many of the municipal workers are associated with the Likud party from which many Kadima members split in late 2005. Some of the groups that joined the party include unions from the ports, airports, the Egged bus company, the Israel Electric Corporation and Israel Railways.

And what will the new leader of Kadima do?

Shas chairman Eli Yishai says he believes neither Tzipi Livni nor Shaul Mofaz has much of a chance of establishing an alternative government after the Kadima primary next week.

The government can hardly survive without the Orthodox Shas, meaning there’s likely to be an election – because Yishai, Shas’s current leader, needs it sooner rather than later. Why? This is kind of complicated, but we can try to explain with the help of Gill Hofman of the Jerusalem Post:

Kadima officials speculated that Yishai might be interested in holding an election soon to avoid a challenge to his leadership from [Aryeh] Deri.

Deri, the former leader of Shas, has decided to run for the Mayoralty of Jerusalem. But he has a problem: as a convicted felon he needs to wait seven years before he can make a political comeback:

The chairman of the Central Elections Committee, retired Judge Eliezer Rivlin, decided against ruling on whether Deri can run for Jerusalem mayor or whether he must wait for seven years since his release from prison before he can seek office as the law states.

The High Court of Justice could end up making the final decision, unless President Shimon Peres issues Deri a pardon. Should the court rule that Deri must wait seven years, Yishai could initiate an election to ensure that it takes place before the seven years are up in July 2009, so that Deri would not be allowed to run for the Knesset.

Yishai believes election will be held in March of 2009.