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The Likud Party\’s list of Knesset candidates, chosen in a party primary this week, left Ariel Sharon\’s campaign strategists scratching their heads.

With national elections approaching on Jan. 28, they had meticulously laid out a centrist strategy in which the prime minister directs moderate peace messages at the large reservoir of floating voters between Labor and Likud, who take a tough line on security but believe in the possibility of a negotiated peace agreement with the Palestinians one day.

It is in the battle for the centrists that Israeli elections are won and lost, experts say.