JERUSALEM, Dec. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- The newly-elected Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu announced early Tuesday morning the party's intention to regain power in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

    The vote count stood at 98 percent on Tuesday morning, with results of Netanyahu's lead stood at 44.6 percent to Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom's 33 percent.

    The far-right candidate Moshe Feiglin received 15 percent while Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz got 8.7 percent.

    Shalom told his supporters earlier Tuesday morning that he will remain in the Likud and will join the efforts with Netanyahu for the party to succeed in the coming elections.

    Netanyahu expressed optimism for the campaign of the March elections, saying "the country is facing great challenges, and I don't believe it is headed in the right direction. I think our way will lead it to safety."

    Netanyahu believed his party would "only grows in strength."However, according to a poll published Tuesday by the Maariv newspaper, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's new Kadima party would win 42 parliament seats if the election were held now, one of the highest results recorded since the prime minister bolted the Likud and formed Kadima four weeks ago.

    The poll gave Amir Peretz's Labor Party 22 parliament mandates and Likud party 13 seats.

    The far-right Feiglin coming in the third place in Likud raised a storm of reactions from all across the political spectrum.

    Finance Minister Ehud Olmert, a member of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Kadima party, attacked that the Likud had now become an extreme right-wing, uncompromising party.

    Olmert called Netanyahu the "imprisoned boy" caught between parliament member Uzi Landau's and Feigilin's extremism.

    Prime Minister Sharon, who was hospitalized on Sunday evening after suffering a mild stroke, was briefed in hospital on the poll results and was surprised with Feiglin's high support rate.

    "A Likud in which Feiglin can win 15 percent of the vote is not a Likud that I know," said former Likud minister Meir Sheetrit,who also bolted the party to join Kadima.

    Sheetrit also said that Netanyahu's victory would help Kadima because it "clearly distinguishes" his party from the Likud.

    Labor Party Chairman Amir Peretz did not hold back his own criticism of the primary results, saying "it is clear today that the Labor Party is the only party that presents a real socialal ternative. Sharon's party and the Likud are responsible for the destruction of Israeli society."

    Parliament member Ophir Pines-Paz from the Labor Party echoed Peretz's sentiments, saying that the "Likud has officially declared war on Israeli society."

    Feiglin's performance also drew negative reactions from some Likud ministers, who vowed to keep the party from slipping further to the right.

    Netanyahu stated before the vote that if he won the primaries he would require all the Likud cabinet ministers to resign from the government - which would leave Sharon with virtually all of the ministerial portfolios.

    Several Likud activists have also said that if Netanyahu won the primaries, he would revive the initiative to form an alternative government by mustering a 61 members in parliament who would support his candidacy as prime minister.

    But Shinui Chairman Yosef Lapid said on Monday evening that his party will not adhere to such an initiative. "We will not support such a move which could imperil the peace process." Enditem