Polls close in tense Jerusalem mayoral race; under 1/3 of voters show up
With over 30% of votes counted, secular Berkovitch takes lead over ultra-Orthodox-backed Lion, but race still too close to call
Marissa Newman is The Times of Israel political correspondent.
Polls closed on Tuesday night at 10 p.m. in a tense Jerusalem mayoral runoff between candidates Moshe Lion and Ofer Berkovitch, with turnout rates in the capital reported at 31.5 percent, in a race largely overshadowed by an outbreak of violence in southern Israel.
According to the Interior Ministry, 200,000 Jerusalem residents, out of 638,000, had exercised their right to pick their next mayor. The preliminary results are expected to trickle in overnight Tuesday, with a final count anticipated by Wednesday.
As one-third of the votes were tallied, Berkovitch took the lead, with 55% compared to Lion’s 44%, a difference of some 7,000 ballots. The results are being updated continuously and are not final.
A second round of municipal voting was held Tuesday in 54 cities, towns, and regional councils on Tuesday — areas in which no single candidate garnered at least 40% of the vote on October 30. The national turnout average was 41%.
The most nail-biting contest in the country took place in Jerusalem, where no clear winner was 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 Berkovitch and placing him neck-and-neck with the front-runner in the first election, 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%. East Jerusalem residents, some one-third of the city’s population, boycott the municipal elections.
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 won 40% of the vote. The turnout in the first round stood at 39%.
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.
In the final hours before the vote ended, many Hasidim surged to the ballots, according to Hebrew reports. Among them was United Torah Judaism leader Yaakov Litzman, a confidant of the leader of the Gur dynasty and Israel’s deputy health minister.
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.
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 closed by 10 p.m.
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 earlier 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.
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 were 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 also had the option to choose 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.
Raoul Wootliff contributed to this report.
