Kadima will rely heavily on images of PM in power
Although Ariel Sharon has been in a coma for the past two months, his Kadima party is still relying on his vigorous past to sway Israeli voters.
Photos of a robust Mr Sharon, who is nominally still prime minister, are to form the centrepiece of the party's opening presentation, as the television advertising campaign for this month's elections gets under way in Israel.
Mr Sharon, will be seen smiling with US President George W. Bush in the White House last year, leaning over a map on the banks of the Suez Canal as a general in the Yom Kippur war with a bandage around his forehead and standing reverently before the Western Wall.
Kadima's campaign strategists hope the images of power and decisiveness will rub off on his chosen successor, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is heading the Kadima ticket.
With a candidate who has virtually no military record and little personal charisma, Mr Olmert's advisers are leaning heavily on Mr Sharon, even in absentia.
'We start the campaign with Ariel Sharon and we switch to Ehud Olmert midway,' said campaign manager Reuven Adler. 'Sharon is the founder and Olmert is his successor who will bring us to victory.'