Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni cast her vote on Tuesday morning in the ongoing general election that mainly pits her and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the next premiership.

Recent polls showed that her centrist Kadima party trailed behind Netanyahu's center-right Likud party with two or three seats, yet Livni expressed confidence that Kadima will finally win out.

"I know that many more people will vote for Kadima. The most important thing is not to lose hope," she said at a polling station near her home in the Ramat Hahayal neighborhood in Tel Aviv.

The remarks mirrored the cautious optimism she showed on Monday, when she said "victory is at hand" on a train to southern Israel in her last-ditch efforts to woo potential supporters.

The leader of the biggest party by parliamentary seats is best positioned to become Israel's next prime minister. In Livni's case, she would become the second woman premier in Israel's history.

In light of Israel's fragmentary political realm, no single party is likely to secure a majority in the parliament, and thus any would-be prime minister would have to cobble together a ruling coalition through interpartisan bargaining.

Both Netanyahu and Livni have said they would form a national unity government as wide as possible, but also hinted that they would not coexist in a ruling coalition, according to local daily The Jerusalem Post.

Livni failed in September to form a cabinet to replace the caretaker one led by outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who resigned amid a corruption scandal, bringing forth the election one year ahead of its original schedule.

(Xinhua News Agency February 10, 2009)