No wish lists

Most of the parties running for the city council are not endorsing a mayoral candidate.

By PEGGY CIDOR
The somewhat dormant electoral campaign for the city council has nevertheless produced an interesting harvest: no fewer than 15 lists will compete for the 30 seats available to those who wish to represent the needs and interests of the city's 730,000 residents. According to the law, only those who, in the framework of a coalition, obtain the status of deputy mayor will receive a salary. All others will have to serve on the city council for the sake of glory, notwithstanding modest compensation for their parking hours during committee meetings, a comfortable chamber, two assistants and the use of municipal letterhead stating their position as "city councillor." A bill to change this somewhat tricky situation - either you can afford to work pro bono or you can't and you're in fact deprived of an important civil right - has been stuck for more than two years between the Knesset and the Interior Ministry for lack of agreement on what is an "adequate and appropriate" compensation or salary for city council members. So who are the people behind those 15 lists, and what are their ambitions and plans to benefit the city and its residents? Over the past few years, the big political parties have not presented mayoral candidates for the capital, but most did present a list to the city council. Lists that are not presenting a candidate for mayor have been very careful not to reveal at this stage which of the four candidates they will encourage supporters to vote for in hopes of keeping all their options open until they know who is elected. The National Religious Party-National Union list, for example, sounds particularly cautious. "We are not supporting for the moment any of the candidates," list head David Hadari recently declared. "Although our constituency is Zionist, for the moment we are sitting on the fence, which is safer," said an NRP member. "But it can sometimes become very painful and uncomfortable." For the Green-Or list - a coalition of the Green party led by city councillor Dalia Zommer (formerly of Shinui), and Gregory Tamar, head of the Or list (a secular, anti-haredi list) - the mission is to "promote green issues that are not on the somewhat obsolete SPNI agenda," and to fight for the empowerment of residents. "We have to teach our constituency to open their mouths and demand their rights, just as the haredim are doing," says Zommer. As for which mayoral candidate to support, Zommer would only say that, "I would never vote for a non-Zionist candidate." Meanwhile, the list's heads are planning a "march with Israeli flags" into Mea She'arim "to eradicate haredi corruption from the city," said spokeswoman Orna Shani. At Meretz, a major change recently took place: polls that showed that the party's constituency is largely in favor of opposition leader and mayoral candidate Nir Barkat have forced list heads to reconsider their original decision not to support him because of his rightist positions. "We couldn't ignore our constituency's will," explained No. 2 on the Meretz list, leftist activist Meir Margalit. "Even those of us who tended to prefer an empty ballot will not go through with it since we realized that doing so could help [mayoral candidate Arkadi] Gaydamak. Our goal now is to stop Gaydamak, and if this goal can be achieved through support to Barkat, so be it." For the Sake of Jerusalem, the list formed by city councillor Meir Turgeman (once a member of Barkat's list), whose agenda is exclusively focused on social issues (improvement of services for the elderly and needy residents, education for children of underprivileged families and better integration of Ethiopian olim), is not calling to support any of the candidates. "We are not really pleased with any of the candidates," said Turgeman. "So we aren't calling on our constituency to vote for any specific candidate, though we do not disqualify any of them, and we will consider seriously any proposal once a new mayor is elected." The newly formed coalition Wake Up Jerusalemites says it seeks first and foremost to bring real change and improvement to residents. "That can be achieved only through participation in the coalition, so we prefer to leave all doors open - we do endorse a specific [mayoral] candidate and we are ready to be a part of the coalition with any one of the two major candidates [Meir Porush and Barkat] despite our personal preferences," said list co-head Rachel Azaria Fraenkel. The other lists running for city council are: Green Leaf led by veteran TV director Dan Biron, who is also running for mayor; Pisgat Ze'ev On the Map, a local list to resolve traffic problems in the northern neighborhood; Jerusalem Our Home, a list affiliated with the national party Israel Beiteinu, which announced on Sunday its support for Barkat as candidate for mayor; Gaydamak's Social Justice list; the New Black Panthers of Jerusalem list led by Ayala Sabag, which might ultimately be prevented from running as it could not afford the NIS 23,000 required deposit to the Interior Ministry; Jerusalem's Future, for which no details were provided by the Interior Ministry; Barkat's Jerusalem Shall Succeed list, joined recently by voters of the Labor Party in the city; the Shas list (which still hasn't announced which candidate it will support); Porush's list, United Torah Judaism; and a Likud list, led by Elisha Peleg, a former city councillor under Teddy Kollek. GAYDAMAK'S IDENTITY CRISIS Mayoral candidate Arkadi Gaydamak was surprised to discover last week that according to the election rules his name cannot be used on the ballots on election day because it is not the name that appears on his identity card. Gaydamak had changed the name on his ID to "Arye Bar-Lev," but was not aware of the requirement for the same name to appear on both his ID and his ballots. Upon registering for the elections with the Central Elections Committee, the Russian oligarch was asked to decide whether he would change the name on his ID or risk confusing his supporters, who might not recognize him by his Hebrew name. Gaydamak's spokesperson Miri Hasson confirmed the story, adding that for the moment, "We still have time to decide, but the decision will ultimately be to change the boss's ID - right after the holidays." PRE-HOLIDAY SCUFFLE Succot eve in Ramot was disrupted when, according to Porush's staff, young Barkat supporters tried to tear up Porush campaign posters with a knife. Porush supporters, who were on the watch, found out and tried to prevent "the hooligan activity," Porush's staff said. The exact unfolding of events, however, is subject to dispute. According to Porush spokesman Gil Peled, one of the young Barkat supporters was arrested. But Barkat spokesman Evyatar Elad said just the opposite: "Porush's activists were arrested after they punctured our supporters' tires and tried to tear down our signs." According to a spokesperson for the police, one of Barkat's supporters was ordered into house arrest after complaints filed by Porush and Gaydamak's staff for "hooligan activities."