Barkat retains lead in J'lem, but 11% still undecided

Russian-Israeli tycoon Arkadi Gaydamak plummeted to 4%, his lowest polling level to date.

By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
nir barkat 224.88 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
nir barkat 224.88
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Jerusalem opposition leader Nir Barkat remains the front-runner in the upcoming mayoral race, but with less than two weeks before the vote one in every 10 voters is undecided, a poll released on Friday shows. The results of the poll, which came as the candidates feverishly seek the support of capital's traditionally hawkish voters in the November 11 election, show the city opposition leader maintaining a 12-point lead over his chief rival, MK Meir Porush of United Torah Judaism, with 11 percent of the public are still undecided. Barkat would garner 48% of the vote, compared to 36% for Porush, according to the poll in the Jerusalem weekly Yediot Yerushalayim. Russian-Israeli tycoon Arkadi Gaydamak plummeted to 4%, his lowest polling level to date, while eleventh-hour candidate Dan Biron of the Green Leaf Party, which supports the legalization of marijuana, is last with just 1% of the vote. The latest poll again finds that the secular and traditional publics predominantly support Barkat, a self-made hi-tech millionaire who has eagerly courted the non-haredi religious vote, while Porush, a veteran haredi legislator with a quarter century of municipal and national government service, garners the overwhelming support of haredi residents. Both seventy-six percent of secular Jerusalemites and 76% of voters who define themselves as traditional said they would support Barkat, while Porush receives 89% of the haredi votes. The two top candidates split the vote of modern Orthodox voters, with Barkat receiving 52% of their vote compared to 32% for Porush. [The poll, the first taken since Biron announced his candidacy, shows that Barkat has lost 4% of the secular vote to Biron.] One in three eligible voters is haredi. To win, Barkat needs a strong turnout among secular and modern religious voters. Only one-third of non-haredi voters turned out in the last elections in 2003, compared to 85% of the haredi public. Then, Uri Lupolianski of United Torah Judaism defeated Barkat by 90,090 to 74,550. The polling in the mainstream Hebrew weekly tends to favor Barkat, with polling carried out before the last municipal elections erroneously predicting a Barkat victory. The Dahaf Institute poll, which was carried out among 500 Jewish city residents, cited a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points. Haaretz on Friday endorsed Porush, citing Barkat's hawkish stands on a united Jerusalem and his advocacy for building for Israelis in east Jerusalem. Porush holds similar views.