MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS: WHERE THE CANDIDATE IS KING

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 TEL AVIV 002534 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV KDEM PINR IS SUBJECT: MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS: WHERE THE CANDIDATE IS KING REF: A. TEL AVIV 2505 ¶B. JERUSALEM 2013 ¶1. Summary: Israeli voters went to the polls November 11 to choose their mayors and municipal councils. Incumbent Ron Huldai won re-election in Tel Aviv, while secular candidate Nir Barkat (formerly affiliated with Kadima) defeated ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) candidate Meir Porush (UTJ) in Jerusalem (reftels). Two female mayors in Israel, MIRIAM Feierberg (Likud) in Netanya and Yael German (Meretz) in Herzliya, were re-elected. Results for individual council seats have not yet been released in Ra'anana, where women candidates could form the majority of a municipal council for the first time in the history of Israel. Arab participation (except for Jerusalem) was remarkably high, with Israel Radio reporting an 80 percent turnout, compared to 40 percent for the general population -- down from 49.5 percent in 2003 and the lowest overall turnout ever registered. Kadima claimed it has become the largest faction in local government by winning 50 mayoral races (out of 260) and increasing council seats across the country, but the Kadima Council President was unseated in Rishon-Letzion and the party's total number of mayors is down from the nearly 80 mayors who joined Kadima shortly after former PM Sharon founded the party in 2005. Likud and Labor did not invest heavily in these elections, and only a dozen or so mayors allied to each of these parties won. Shas won four municipalities where the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) population is significant, but its nationwide reach was limited. Yisrael Beiteinu claims that the elections broadened its national base, and, like Kadima, hopes to use the political apparatus deployed in the municipal elections to get out the vote in general elections on February 10. End Summary. -------------- TURNOUT DOWN -------------- ¶2. Even with a younger threshold for voting in these municipal elections, overall participation decreased to just 40 percent of voters (who are eligible if they are 17 or older). This figure was down from 49.5 percent in 2003, and the lowest ever according to Ma'ariv newspaper. Consequently, some results were less revealing than they might first appear. For example, MIRIAM Feierberg (Likud) won re-election in the coastal city of Netanya with a resounding 81 percent of the vote. However, as only seven percent of the electorate voted in Netanya, Feierberg received the support of only one in twenty eligible voters. A Jerusalem Post analysis blamed the low turnout on three reasons: (1) Israel, a small country both in population and geography, has many pressing national issues that leave little energy for voters to focus on local issues; (2) a world-wide trend of decreasing participation in the political process at all levels; and (3) as detailed in Ref A, local authorities in Israel do not have a great deal of power or revenues to work with, and thus "the significance of local elections is not as great as local politicians would like to make it sound." This disinterest was shared by the media, as the Jerusalem Post, like Ha'aretz, did not carry a section on their website devoted to the Israeli municipal elections. -------------- TEL AVIV STATUS QUO, SHAKE-UPS IN THE SOUTH -------------- ¶3. Incumbent Ron Huldai, who has been associated with the Labor Party but now heads an independent list, won re-election in Tel Aviv, defeating challenger Dov Khenin, an MK with the Hadash party (formerly "communist" but now a mixed Jewish-Arab party on the far left),who headed an independent slate that garnered an equal number of Council seats. The two longest-serving mayors in Israel fell, as Zvi Tzilker lost to Yehiel Lasri (Likud) after 33 years as mayor of Ashdod, while Meir Nitzan (Kadima) lost to Dov Tzur after 25 years as mayor of Rishon Letzion. Nitzan is the President of the Kadima Party Council and has announced his retirement from politics. Rubik Danilovitz easily defeated the Kadima-aligned incumbent, Yaakov Turner, in Beersheva, while former mayor David Buskila returned to office in Sderot, besting the wife of former Labor Party leader Amir Peretz. Yona Yahav (Kadima, formerly Labor) beat off challenger Yaacov Borovsky to win re-election as mayor of Haifa. Ramez Jaraisy was re-elected in Nazareth, the largest Arab city in Israel. Jaraisy defeated a list that included members of the Islamic Movement, which lost its majority on the Nazareth council to Jaraisy's secular Hadash party -- even though Nazareth's population is approximately 70 percent Muslim. In Rehovot, Rahat (the largest Bedouin city in Israel) and a few smaller cities, no mayoral candidate received the minimum threshold of 40 percent of the vote, which means that a run-off election will be held in two weeks between the top two vote-getters. Council seats are divided proportionally TEL AVIV 00002534 002 OF 003 according to the percentage of votes each party/group list receives. -------------- WOMEN MAYORS -------------- ¶4. The glass ceiling in Israeli politics remains strong, as only 3 of 25 cabinet members and 18 of 120 Knesset members are women. The only two confirmed winners among the 32 women mayoral candidates were incumbents MIRIAM Feierberg (Likud) in Netanya and Yael German (Meretz) in Herzliya. Flora Shushan -- sister of former Labor Party leader Amir Peretz -- appeared to be leading the mayoral race in Mitzpeh Ramon, where she has served as Acting Mayor, but the vote will be decided by the absentee ballots of the military, which have yet to be counted. If Shushan wins, she will become only the 11th elected, female mayor in the history of Israel. Results for individual council seats have not yet been released, but if women gain a majority on the Ra'anana municipal council (women held 10 of 20 seats going into the election) it will be the first time women have controlled a majority of any municipal council in Israel. Early reports indicate that Arab voters in Israel turned out in much higher numbers than the general population: 80 percent according to Israel Radio, compared to 40 percent among the general population. Only the official tallies, which will be published in 20 days, will reveal the precise participation statistics and final results, but the overall trend has been decreasing participation in both local and national elections. -------------- POSTSCRIPT ON LOCAL POLS AND PARTY TIES -------------- ¶5. The national party ties of many candidates are tenuous, and local issues dominated most races. Tel Aviv mayor Huldai is identified as a member of the Labor Party, but like most Israeli mayors he is known and elected for his personality and personal policies, not his national party affiliation. Haifa mayor Yahav is nominally Kadima, but ran under the "Our Haifa" banner. Conversely, some local parties with independent-sounding names are in fact affiliated with one of the national parties. Netanya mayor Feierberg, for example, appeared on the ballot under "One Netanya" but is a member of and supported by the Likud Party, albeit less strongly tied to her national party than local Democratic and Republican politicians tend to be in the United States. Moreover, many mayors shop around to see where they can get the most of what they want from the national government. Ha'aretz reported a slight increase in female council members, and attributed the gains to the growth of independent lists, saying they offered more opportunities for women than "Labor and Likud's practice of choosing army veterans as candidates." ¶6. Nonetheless, Kadima -- with their goal of forming the next Government -- and the Green Party -- with their goal of entering the next Knesset -- invested heavily in the municipal elections in the hopes they would build momentum toward the national elections in February. Major traditional power parties, Likud and Labor, meanwhile, invested little in these municipal elections in order to conserve scarce funds and concentrate strategy on the national elections. Kadima claimed it has become the largest faction in local government by winning 50 mayoral races, with the media quoting Vice Premier Haim Ramon as saying their success "creates a future infrastructure -- it is significant" and municipal campaign head Yoel Hasson as claiming that Likud and Labor "have nearly been erased." A Kadima contact assessed that even though Kadima came away from the elections with fewer mayors than it had hoped, the party strengthened its position with new seats in municipal councils across the country. Likud and Labor only won a little more than a dozen mayoral races each. The Green Party nearly doubled its representation by winning 50 seats on municipal councils, bolstering the minor party's hopes of landing its first-ever Knesset seats in February's national elections. ¶7. Labor Party Secretary-General Etan Cabel announced that he was pleased with the results, saying Labor had strengthened the party "with a small budget" and brought about "a change in leadership in many cities." According to Shas Party Chairman Eli Yishai, Shas won four mayoral races, and was "continuing the revolution it started with the local authorities, and will end in elections to Knesset." (Yishai, however, admitted to a "stinging" loss for the Haredim in Jerusalem.) Chairman Avigdor Lieberman claimed that Yisrael Beiteinu "doubled its power" and that "will lead to the party doubling its power in the general elections." Likud was relatively silent on the significance of the municipal elections, and an aide to Party Chairman Netanyahu explained to poloff that the municipal elections were about "local issues, not national politics." TEL AVIV 00002534 003 OF 003 ********************************************* ******************** Visit Embassy Tel Aviv's Classified Website: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/telaviv You can also access this site through the State Department's Classified SIPRNET website. ********************************************* ******************** CUNNINGHAM