Wolloch may resume at current post, despite legal proceedings

The pensioners' party headed by Wolloch is currently the largest faction in the council with six seats.

By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai says he may make Power to the Pensioners party head Natan Wolloch his deputy once again after the coming elections, despite criminal charges pending against him, reports www.mynet.co.il. Huldai said that if the public was willing to place its trust in the former acting mayor by re-electing him to the council, "then there is nothing to prevent his return to the job." According to the report, the pensioners' party headed by Wolloch is currently the largest faction in the council with six seats, and has announced its support for Huldai, who is running for re-election as mayor against five other candidates. Wolloch held the position of acting mayor until the so-called Parking Lots Scandal erupted earlier this year, in which a number of city officials and developers have been charged over fraudulently won deals to run paid parking lots around Tel Aviv. During the investigation, police turned up documents implicating Wolloch with fraudulently obtaining entry visas for a woman from Moldova. Huldai then asked Wolloch to resign as acting mayor, and the latter did so, although he has continued to work from his office and has announced his bid for re-election to the council. "We value the Power to the Pensioners faction for its support for the candidacy of Ron Huldai as mayor of Tel Aviv-Jaffa," a spokesman for Huldai's campaign headquarters said. "Acting mayor Natan Wolloch suspended himself from the job after charges were laid against him. Wolloch is asking for the trust of the public. If he wins the trust of the public, as has happened in the past, there is nothing to prevent his return to the job." Meanwhile, Pensioners' Affairs Minister Rafi Eitan has announced that his Gil pensioners' party supports Ron Levintal's Tel Avivim list in the municipal elections, reports www.local.co.il. Eitan told a press conference that he believed that Levintal's party would better represent the aged than the city's pensioners' party would.