Corridors of power: New stock market in town

The only candidate feasible enough to beat a wealthy, incumbent mayor still hasn’t uttered a word about his real intentions.

By PEGGY CIDOR
Barakat and meretz_521 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Barakat and meretz_521
(photo credit: Courtesy)
There is a new stock market in town, a very active one judging by the growing list of local celebrities jumping on the bandwagon over the last few weeks. Dreamers, lovers of Jerusalem, some motivated by a genuine concern for a better tomorrow and others driven by less noble motives – little by little, they are gathering, and by now it is open to the general public through friends, the social media and the local press.
For the sake of those readers who may think that this is about a financial mission (stock market and such), this is the time to clarify that we are talking about a new ad-hoc initiative aimed at finding the ideal candidate to challenge Mayor Nir Barkat in the next election, scheduled for November 2013.
Names, that is the first rule of the game – to produce a list of personalities that have some chance of attracting votes. Of course, the little group that started this initiative two months ago is trying hard to prove that a mission and a vision lie at the heart of their search, but nobody is fooling himself (or herself). They all understand that the most important objective is to come up with a name that is capable of rallying as much support as possible.
But perhaps before we look into the stock market of names, we should take a closer look at who the people behind this informal organization are.
WELL, THE first thing that comes out clearly – and colors it with some problematic shades – is the fact that some of them have been personally hurt by Barkat. Not that there is anything illegitimate in the fact that people who have experienced some level of disillusion or even a personal blow want to replace him with another candidate – that is what politics is made of, after all. But still, one would assume that in order to convince us that he or she is promoting an idea in good faith, personal feelings should not be part of the equation. Well, apparently that is too much to ask in this world of ours.
So who are the people behind the initiative and what are they looking for? Zvika Chernichovski, former director-general of the Jerusalem Association of Community Councils and Centers, is the driving force behind all this. He was one of the people closest to Barkat until a big black cat passed between them.
Chernichovski not only doesn’t hide that fact, but he admits it and adds that this is precisely the reason behind his activity. “I put Barkat in the mayor’s chair, so I feel that I owe Jerusalem residents a better mayor,” he told this reporter earlier this week.
Chernichovski is not the only one in this initiative who might be motivated by personal feelings. But the real problem lies in the fact that what these – otherwise excellent – people are working on looks and sounds exactly like Barkat’s program some five years ago, such as improving the level of education in the city, cleaning up the streets, finding attractive ways to keep the young generation here, enlarging the scope of attractive jobs and solving the tensions between the different communities such as the haredim and the secular.
SO WHERE is the novelty in this new initiative? The answer brings us back to square one, that is the stock market of the eventual candidates and who – or what – will stand behind them. All the participants in the gathering that took place at Chernichovski’s house on Sunday agreed on two issues: (1) that a large political party should be involved in the Jerusalem campaign for the next mayor; and (2) that only a candidate with the best chances of obtaining such support should get the group’s support.
The representative of Meretz on the city council, Laura Wharton, a veteran opponent of Barkat’s; city councillor Meir Turgeman, an icon of the Likud Party in the city; Yaron Tzidkiyahu of the Mahaneh Yehuda Merchants’ Association, as well as an almost personal enemy of Barkat’s like former president of the Parents’ Association Eti Binyamin; and MK Nachman Shai (Kadima) – all these and others who came, listened, debated, and even proposed additional names (like MK Dalia Itzik of Kadima) all had one common goal: to find the ideal candidate who would fill the bill.
By the end of the evening, Shai agreed to say that he was interested enough to hear more.
And, as a total surprise, former Jerusalem police chief Mickey Levy make an informal statement about his interest in the initiative.
The problem is that for all the some 45 residents present, and many more outside this initiative, as Turgeman explained, the only candidate feasible enough to beat a sitting and very wealthy mayor running for another term still hadn’t uttered a word about his his real intentions.
His name? Aryeh Deri. What else is new?