Local Political Action

In just a two more days, Municipal elections will be held throughout Israel on (22 October), including in Jerusalem. For the last month the campaigns really heated up.

People are putting up their prefered candidates banners. A few weeks ago, one of the mayoral candidates had a stand at a street fair & my kids decided he is the one and got a banner which they proceeded walking down a very crowded street with the banner unfurled. The following morning, they had it affixed to one of the apartment windows.

While I'm sure who I'm supporting for mayor, I'm still undecided who to support for City Council.

Therein lies the rub.

Despite the importance of the City Council, the mayoral race sets the tone for the entire election atmosphere. In Tel Aviv, there seems to be a serious and viable challenger to the incumbent mayor. In Jerusalem, on the other hand, it's less clear to me.

There are two major candidates running for Mayor, the incumbent [Nir Barkat] and someone from Likud-Beiteinu [Moshe Lion] a top city bureaucrat (who also happens NOT to live in Jerusalem). The challenger is, for all intents and purposes, a front-person who "other forces". One of his major supporter is a wheeler dealer haredi politician (who only recently returned to active politics after being barred for a moral turpitude conviction). The other major supporter is the head of the Yisrael Beiteinu (Avigdor Leiberman) who has his own personal agenda to advance (including an end run around the Likud Party and Bibi Netanyahu) and Aryeh Deri (the head of Shas--the Sephardi haredi party and a convicted felon whose 7 year cooling off period for moral turpitude ended in time for the last national elections). What I thought would be a boring affair, may turn out to be a real nailbiter.

Whereas in the last election there was a haredi [Meir Porush] and secular [Nir Barkat] candidate and the lines clearly drawn, this time around its more subterranean. In the end, the secular candidate won because of an internal battle within the haredi community

This time around, excluding the Sephardi haredim loyal to Aryeh Deri (and the usual (it's a given in any election) gang of anti-incumbent), the haredi community is split. Recently--interpreted as an advantage to Barkat--the haredi rabbis refused to issue an unified endorsement. Every community will make its own decision. While Moshe Lion continues to hope that he'll be able to convince many of the Rabbis to back his candidacy and squeak into the mayor's chair a la Olmert did 15 years ago, that likelihood is becoming less viable.

The Rabbis will announce their "recommendation" shortly in time for the election. Then, only time will tell if the haredim will cast a vote for mayor or if they'll abstain (and if that'll be the rabbinic directive).

If there's a low turnout [read: vote] from the haredim,, Barkat has a better chance of retaining the mayoralty.

Barkat's success is predicated on a high voter turnout by the non-haredi populations. If they don't vote, Lion will win. Which in my opinion will be a shame and signal a regression for Jerusalem and have profound effects on the political battles/structures on the national political level.An "added 'bonus'" is that the Lion candidacy is splitting the Likud-Beiteinu coalition, with card carrying Likud members supporting each candidate. (Bibi Netanyahu is known to be supporting Nir Barkat).

The campaign has been a tightly fought one, IOW, a lot of mud has been flying back and forth about the qualifications or record of the candidates.

The material distributed by the Lion camp has painted Barkat as a complete failure--the outflow of residents from Jerusalem has not only not abated bit has accelerated, the quality of education (average grades on standardized tests and the matriculation exams) has gone down, Jerusalem is spending less than 50% of Tel Aviv ... While all of this maybe true. He claims to be using figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics, they're misleading and deceptive (as in "there are lies, bad lies and statistics"). I see Lion as lie'on [lying].

While Barkat was far from an excellent mayor, and a real challenger from Jerusalem could have made the race a tight one based in the issues, instead of (personal) power politics, I fear that Lion will be an even worse option for Jerusalem.

1. He'll need to spend his term--like Barkat did his first term--learning the ropes.
2. He'll be beholden to Lieberman and Deri instead of the residents of the city.
3. He's not a Jerusalemite, so he'll also need to learn the city itself--neighborhoods, land marks ...

Instead of making sure the haredim's power is checked (they will undoubtedly win the majority of the city council seats) and sensitive portfolios have kept out of their hands, specifically, education and planning--they'll have the effective (if not the real.literal) control of the City. Monies will be siphoned away from the non-haredi school system (Manch"i) to the haredi system(s). Social services including buildings (housing as well as communal services) will take over the city. Whatever "progress" was achieved over the last 5 years in making the city more open to ALL its residents--green spaces and environmental progress, cultural activities, attracting commercial /industry to the City ... will be lost. Lion will be an "enabler" for the haredization of the city and the quality of life will diminish and many non-haredi people will leave the city.

Can't let that happen.

(Will stop here. Talk about the City Council tomorrow.)