Less than a month after his coalition collapsed, despite a series of high-profile defections from his party, reviled by many world leaders, and with his country's economy sinking ever-deeper into recession, Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, can nevertheless this weekend look ahead to May's general elections with a fair degree of confidence.
There are, of course, another four months to go until the May 17th polling day. And, indeed, it is likely there will be a second-round "run-off" for the prime ministership, a fortnight after that, between the two leading contenders.
The Israeli national mood can turn on a bombing, a scandal, or a politician's ill-considered remark. But still, for Mr Netanyahu, ridiculed by some of his own colleagues as he battled to save his coalition just a month ago, the turnaround in his fortunes has been nothing short of remarkable.
Opinion polls in both of Israel's leading tabloid newspapers yesterday placed him neck-and-neck in the prime ministerial race with the main opposition candidate, the Labour party leader, Mr Ehud Barak, and just 4 or 5 per cent behind the centrist contender, Mr Amnon Lipkin Shahak, whom he trailed by 20 per cent in surveys just a few weeks ago.
At first glance, near parity with his opponents might not seem all that impressive, but Mr Netanyahu won the 1996 elections despite having at one stage been more than 30 per cent behind Mr Shimon Peres. And Mr Peres was the prime minister at the time, and had the huge advantage of holding the economic purse strings that Mr Netanyahu has been opening to good effect in the past few days.
Working to offset statistics showing an increase of 2 per cent in unemployment to a nationwide 8.8 per cent average for 1998, Mr Netanyahu has this week increased funding for education, decided not to cancel various tax breaks, and approved other public spending measures denounced by his rivals as "election economics". Evidently, the spending is having its desired effect on his popularity, but that is only part of the story.
Mr Netanyahu has been boosted by the chaos in the Labour party - which also suffered a high-profile defection this week, was rocked by a mysterious burglary at the offices of its US advisers, and wasted much of its energy arguing about how to put together its list of candidates for Knesset seats.
He has been buoyed by bickering between the former general Shahak and another would-be centrist leader, Mr Dan Meridor. And most of all, he has been revitalised because of the failure of the critics closest to him to mount any kind of dynamic opposition.
Mr Uzi Landau, the Likud Knesset member who was challenging him for the leadership of the party, has now dropped out, leaving only Mr Moshe Arens, Mr Netanyahu's 73-year-old disillusioned former mentor, standing hopelessly against him in the Likud.
Signs are that Mr Yitzhak Mordechai, the grumbling Minister of Defence, is about to make his peace with Mr Netanyahu. And Mr Beni Begin, who is seeking to outflank Mr Netanyahu from the right, has so far been unable to unite the numerous settler leaders, Knesset factions and other right-wing interest groups.
Mr Netanyahu appears better prepared than any of his opponents, and, as ever, more adept in front of the TV cameras. Studio audiences applaud him during TV interviews (either because the prime minister's aides are somehow packing the studios, or because they genuinely represent the growing right-wing sector of the Israeli electorate) while Mr Shahak gets pelted with vegetables during his walkabouts, and Mr Barak steers clear of walkabouts altogether.
In an election campaign of this inordinate length, with the Palestinians able to play a potentially decisive role, any number of factors could still arise to thwart Mr Netanyahu's re-election hopes. But perhaps the most significant poll question answered yesterday was the one which asked respondents to predict which candidate, regardless of their own preferences, they believed would prevail in the elections: Mr Shahak scored 8 per cent, Mr Barak 27 per cent, and Mr Netanyahu a massive 56 per cent.