Tel Aviv  - The ruling Kadima party of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni could score a narrow upset victory in Tuesday's Israeli elections, three separate exit polls on Israel's television news channels predicted.

Two exit polls by Channel 10 and the state-run Channel 1 both gave 30 seats to the centrist Kadima and 28 to the hardline Likud party of former premier Benjamin Netanyahu, despite the latter's having led in the opinion polls virtually throughout the entire campaign.

A third poll by Channel 2 also gave Kadima a two-seat lead, but with 29 mandates for it compared to 27 for the Likud.

Kadima's jubilation, however, could be premature, as all three exit polls showed the right-wing bloc of which Likud is a part becoming a majority with 63 or 64 seats in the
120-seat Knesset.

In addition, Kadima's narrow lead could evaporate once the real results come in.

Netanyahu's office said in a statement after exit polls were released that he "will be the next prime minister."

But Livni insisted "the people have chosen Kadima and we will lead the government." Her associates told Israeli media she planned to work toward setting up a coalition of national unity with Kadima, the Likud and the Labour Party.

However, even if the exit polls prove accurate, she may still have difficulty persuading President Shimon Peres to assign her to forming the next government. According to a survey published over the weekend, most of the likely lawmakers in the new Knesset plan to recommend Netanyahu to the president.

According to Israeli law, the president has to consult the heads of Knesset factions and follow their recommendations before appointing a candidate to form a coalition.

The ultra-nationalist Israel Beiteinu party of Soviet-born Avigdor Lieberman did less well than predicted with a predicted 14 or 15 mandates, instead of the 18 to 20 forecast in pre-election surveys. Nevertheless, all three exit polls showed it would narrowly surpass the Labour Party of Defence Minister Ehud Barak to become, for the first time ever, the third largest in the Israeli parliament.

Labour, currently the second-largest party with 19 mandates in the outgoing Knesset, was predicted by all three polls to win only 13 seats.

Kadima has around the same number of seats in the outgoing parliament as it is forecast to have won Tuesday - 29, while the Likud appears to be more than doubling its current 12 mandates.

The one-issue Pensioners Party, which won seven seats in the last elections and became a desirable coalition partner, stood out as the one faction in the current Knesset which did not make it past the 3 per cent threshold needed for entry.

A small Arab faction, Balad, which has three mandates in the outgoing House but also feared not making it, apparently in fact did. Exit polls showed it could still count on two to three mandates.

Analysts said that the sharp rise of Lieberman in the pre-election surveys had prompted more Arab Israelis to go out and vote, although many had initially said they would boycott the election in protest of Israel's recent Gaza offensive.

The ultra-Orthodox Shas party, traditionally often a coalition maker or breaker, is predicted to drop several mandates, from 12 in the outgoing to nine or 10 in the new Knesset.

Voter turnout stood at 65.2 per cent, slightly higher than in the last elections of March 2006. The bad weather, which had initially prompted analysts to predict a low turnout, may have played out in favour of the more mainstream parties, as dispassionate voters who would have otherwise planned outings to the beach or nature reserves went out to vote after all. dpa