Jerusalem, other towns return to mayoral polls, as Gaza attacks stymie 1 runoff
Candidates who failed to reach 40% in first round face tense runoffs; race in capital too close to call as voters chose between ultra-Orthodox-backed Lion and secular Berkovitch
Raoul Wootliff is a former Times of Israel political correspondent and Daily Briefing podcast producer.
After residents spent the night in bomb shelters, Israeli towns near the Gaza border were dealt further disruption Tuesday morning, as Interior Ministry Aryeh Deri announced that a key municipal runoff election in the area, set to begin later in the day, would be postponed indefinitely due to the ongoing escalation of violence.
Polling stations in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council did not open as planned at 1 p.m. following the recommendations of the Israel Defense Forces’ Home Front Command, a statement from the ministry said.
Deri said that the election, one of 55 scheduled to take place in municipalities across the country, would be put off until “quieter days” in the region.
The IDF said that more than 400 rockets and mortar rounds had been shot from Gaza at Israel’s south from Monday afternoon to Tuesday morning, in the largest-ever barrage on southern Israel in a single day.
“I decided to postpone the elections on the Ashkelon coast because the security of the residents is the most important. Elections cannot be held when residents cannot leave the area of protected compounds, shelters and shelters,” Deri said Tuesday morning, stressing that the other local polls could go ahead as planned.
Some 1.9 million Israeli citizens and residents over the age of 17 are eligible to cast their votes in runoff polls across the country, electing officials to the 54 cities, towns, and regional councils where elections are taking place, according to Interior Ministry figures.
Ballot stations nationwide opened at 1 p.m. and were set to close by 10 p.m. The preliminary results are expected to trickle in overnight Tuesday, with a final count anticipated by Wednesday. Israelis can find their poll location on this website (Hebrew).
The Tuesday elections are taking place in municipalities where no single mayoral candidate received over 40 percent of the vote in the October 30 poll, which took place in 251 separate towns and regional councils.
In the Lower Galilee, for example, Mayor Shlomo Nitzan Peleg missed an outright win by only one hundredth of a percent, winning 39.99% of the votes and forcing him into a runoff against rival Asher Cohen, who won just 22.6%.
While the October elections took place for the first time under a new Knesset law giving Israelis the day off to vote for their local officials, the Interior Ministry said it hoped that Tuesday, which is not a vacation day, will also see a strong voter turnout.
“The second round is smaller, but the drama is at its peak, and we expect a high percentage of votes in this round as well,” ministry Director General Mordechai Cohen said ahead of the poll.
In the first round, 3.6 million people voted out of 6.6 million eligible voters, representing an increase of some 10 percentage points over the rate when the last municipal elections were held five years ago.
While voter turnout may be lower, Tuesday’s results could raise the number of female mayors and regional council chairs, as six female candidates are facing runoffs including Yehud Mayor Yaela Machlis, who will battle former mayor Yossi Ben David, and former Yesh Atid MK Yifat Kariv, who is taking on Amir Kochavi in Hod Hasharon.
The majority of Tuesday’s votes will be cast in smaller regional councils, but tense races are also taking place in 19 towns and cities across the country, from the southern resort of Eilat to the northern city of Safed. Voters in the central Israeli towns of Rishon Lezion, Ramat Gan, Ramat Hasharon, Kfar Saba and Bat Yam will all have the option to chose between their top two candidates.
In Rishon Lezion, Mayor Dov Zur faces challenger Raz Kinestalich after failing to gain 40% of the vote, a result widely seen as related to criminal suspicions against the incumbent. Zur was removed from office for 45 days when he was arrested in early December for alleged involvement in a bribery case involving Likud MK David Bitan — a former Rishon Lezion deputy mayor — and senior figures in the Rishon Lezion and Tel Aviv municipalities.
Zur is suspected of bribery, fraud and breach of trust for promoting certain construction projects in the city together with contractors, police said at the time.
In the West Bank, all eyes are on the Gush Etzion Regional Council, where the race reflects the potential leadership of the entire settlement movement.
Since his shock victory in the special elections called after the 2017 resignation of former Gush Etzion Regional Council head Davidi Pearl, Shlomo Ne’eman has been viewed as a rising star in settler politics and a rumored candidate for Yesha Council chair. However, the 45-year-old resident of Karmei Tzur was unable to garner enough votes to win outright and now faces Moshe Seville, viewed as a mentee and ally of Samaria Regional Council chair Yossi Dagan, who has long refused to work within the Yesha Council.
Perhaps the most nail-biting contest in the country, however, takes place in Jerusalem, where no clear winner is discernible between the two candidates seeking to be mayor of the capital.
Hasidic religious leaders in Jerusalem on Monday ordered their followers to refrain from voting in the runoff, splitting the ultra-Orthodox vote in a maneuver seen as buoying candidate Ofer Berkovitch and placing him neck-and-neck with the front-runner in the first election, Moshe Lion.
Lion has the backing of much of the ultra-Orthodox community in the capital and the endorsements of both the Haredi Shas and Degel Hatorah factions. Berkovitch, meanwhile, has led the vanguard of the secularist flank of the city with his Hitorerut party. In the first round of voting Lion received 33% of the vote, followed by Berkovitch with 29%.
The runoff between the two contenders is being held after none of the five candidates in the first round — Lion, Berkovitch, Jerusalem Affairs Minister Ze’ev Elkin, Deputy Mayor Yossi Deitch, and Avi Salman — successfully garnered 40% of the vote.
Despite Lion’s broad Haredi support, brewing animosity between the Lithuanian non-Hasidic Degel Hatorah and largely Hasidic Agudat Yisrael prompted the latter’s rabbinical council to decide, a day before the vote, that it would stay home on election day and not back Lion, in what some saw as tacit support for Berkovitch’s candidacy.
Agudath Yisrael broke ranks with the other ultra-Orthodox groups in the first round of the vote, tapping its own candidate — Yossi Deitch — rather than supporting Lion. The Hasidic sects were also rumored to be a decisive factor in incumbent Nir Barkat’s narrow victory over Lion in 2013.
The tightened race also came after Lion received several high-profile endorsements. He was backed by incumbent Barkat, the local chapters of the Likud and Jewish Home parties, and several Likud ministers.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not endorsed either Lion, the former director-general of his bureau, or Berkovitch.
Marissa Newman and Jacob Magid contributed to this report.
