Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid on Monday officially introduced two new candidates
running on his party’s list – Herzliya Mayor Yael German and Dimona Mayor Meir
Cohen.
German, formerly a Meretz member, became Herzliya’s first female
mayor in 1998, and has served in that position ever since. Cohen was elected as
Dimona mayor in 2001, when he was aligned with Yisrael Beytenu.
Lapid
said that the two additions to his party “deal daily with the bureaucracy that
wears down the citizens of Israel."
During the press conference an
emphasis was placed on a central element of Yesh Atid’s platform: the need to
change the political system in Israel.
German said that politicians have
forgotten the concept of “[for] the good of the public,” and said the system
needs to undergo “fundamental change."
“We must stop this system in which
the government reaches roughly into the citizen’s pocket,” he
stressed.
Lapid welcomed the two mayors into the party, saying “Yael and
Meir are exactly the type of people who understand that the system is not
working. They are the people who have struggled for years, everyday, with the
fact that our politicians do not care about the public, only about
themselves.”
“They are here because they know that until we switch the
system, nothing will change here.... Yael and Meir are here because that is how
Yesh Atid works,” he said.
German said that in the 14 years she served as
mayor, she saw the way in which the government system runs the lives of Israeli
citizens. She added that, after observing problems in issues of education,
housing, welfare and health, she concluded that “something fundamental, basic,
does not work.”
Expressing similar sentiment, Cohen stated that what
unites the candidates running on the Yesh Atid list “is the desire to repair the
system.”
On Sunday, Lapid said that Yaakov Peri would not be the second
candidate on his party’s list, sparking rumors that national-religious Rabbi
Shai Piron will fill that spot.
“Yaakov Peri is a senior member of Yesh
Atid, not No. 2.
No. 2 will be revealed in time, and I am proud of him,”
Lapid said in an interview on the Knesset Channel.
Lahav Harkov
contributed to this report.