Israel 2018 municipal elections Oct 30 and Nov 13

[danny]

elections in 251 municipalities (out of 255) will take place on October 30. Each voter votes twice, once for the council, and a second vote for the mayor. If no candidate reaches 40% in the first round, then there is a second round on November 13 between the top 2. The number of councillors depends on the population in the municipality and is between 7 for the smallest locations and 31 for he largest.

Keep in mind that while there are many local affiliates of national parties, local parties will often dominate the council, and in some cases there are alliances between local affiliates that wouldn't make sense from a national perspective.

Obviously I can't talk about each municipality so I'll just go with my own city of Jerusalem.

Moshe Leon- Ran last time and came in a close second with 45% mostly on the back of Haredi support. This time he has the backing of Shas the Litvishers (the non hasidic part of UTJ) and Yisrael Beitenu.

Zeev Elkin- The current Minister of Environmental protection and Jerusalem affairs for the Likud. Has the support of Netanyahu the Jewish Home and outgoing mayor Barkat whom is going into national politics with The Likud.

Ofer Berkovitch- The head of a local party that was in the municipal coalition until they left because they blamed Barkat for giving in too much to the Haredim. Berkovitch has made himself the main candidate of Secular Jerusalem and related groups who are opposed to Haredi power in the city.

Those are the 3 candidates that have a chance to win but there are two more who don’t.

Yossi Deitch- The candidate of the Hasidic part of UTJ. A Haredi candidate would need to unite the Haredi vote to win and with Shas and the Litvishers supporting Leon he can’t win anymore.

Rachel Azaria- A member of Knesset for Kulanu. Her potential electorate would be the same as that of Berkovitch, and since he is clearly the stronger candidate Azaria’s candidacy has become hopeless and could only serve as a spoiler for Berkovitch.

[danny]

Which national parties have the strongest representation in the municipalities?

This varies greatly by municipality, but the Haredi are the only ones who consistently keep their national support, and a newer party like Kulanu does the worst.

[danny]

In places like Beitar Illit, Modiin Illit or Bnei Brak, do the Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah run separately?

Last time they ran together in those places. in fact in Beitar they also ran with Shas.

[danny]

and won... all seats?

12 of 15 seats, there were a couple of small local parties that got 3 seats between them.

[danny]

How about Afula? I’m certain it’s a Likud stronghold. 

They do well in national elections, in the last local election they won one seat out of 15.

[danny]

This is probably showing my complete ignorance of Israeli politics, but Yisrael Beiteinu and the Haredim? I was under the impression that they didn't really get along?

The bases of the party are very different and would disagree a lot on religious matters. Deri and Lieberman are a different matter, they have been friends and allies for a long time and are both connected to Jewish Austrian billionaire Martin Schlaf. Not coincidentally, Moshe Leon, the guy they are promoting, used to be an adviser to Schlaf.

[danny]

Rachel Azaria dropped out of the race and will endorse Elkin. She wasn't going to get many votes and I expect that most of the those that were panning to vote for her won't vote based upon her recommendation anyway. I think Berkovitch gets more of her former supporters than Elkin, but it won't make a big difference anyway.

[danny]

Who do Armenians and Arabs vote for here, or are they kinda shut from Jerusalem politics.

Hardly anyone votes.

[danny]

Jerusalem also has Yossi Havilio, a secular attorney who's basically the candidate of the tiny left plus the LGBTQ community in the city. He obviously can't win I'd probably vote for Berkovitch considering everything.

He already dropped out and endorsed Berkovitch a while ago.

[danny]

I heard Jerusalem has an Arab city councilor running for the first time?  I was there just recently and apparently even some Jews will be voting for them.  What do you think his chances are?  While Arab voters show up this time or will many as in the past boycott municipal elections.

There is an Arab party running for the council this time, whether that will cause enough Arabs to show up and vote I don't know. As for Jewish voters it's not something I heard about, but if you look hard enough you could find just about any kind of voter, although this is coming from the far left it would be ironic since the party leader is a Likud member.

[danny]

Is Huldai running in Tel Aviv again?

Yes, seems that his main competition is Assaf Zamir, although other than being half his age I don't know what the differences are between them.

[danny]

Election is tomorrow and it's turning into an interesting one. Not just in Jerusalem where things were always going to be open, but also in Tel Aviv that has turned into a close race between longtime mayor Huldai and Assaf Zamir, and Haifa where the incumbent is looking like he is likely to lose.

[danny]

What's the weird 40% thing? How does it work? Can somebody be elected in the first round with only like 42% of the vote? Also, is it true that 17-year olds can already vote?

The answer is yes to both (the 40% part never really made much sense to me, it should be the normal 50%).

[danny]

Got my voting done early, voted for Berkovitch and His party Hitorerut. Took about about 2 minutes waiting with 1 person in front of me.

[danny]

I thought you were usually on the right, but then I also heard secular right-wingers are open to voting for Berkovitch in Jerusalem. May I ask why you voted for him?

In national elections I always vote for the right, but in local elections left/right is less important so I'll often vote based more on religious issues or just generally who I think is the better candidate. I still wouldn't vote for a truly left wing candidate in Jerusalem who would to give parts of the city to the Palestinians, but a vaguely centrist one like berkovitch is OK. I definitely wouldn't vote for a Haredi based candidate like Lion or deutch. Elkin seems decent I just liked Berkovitch's party so far so I went with him.

[danny]

17:00 turnout at 47.8%, which is a staggering 12.3% increase from 2013

That number is inflated, it's the average of all municipalities without regard to the number of people in each municipality, and since turnout tends to be higher in smaller places, it's higher than it really is.

The real number is currently just below 40%.

[danny]

up to 42.5% turnout now.

[danny]

Up to 51.89% turnout now, which means that the final number for the previous two elections has already been beaten.

[danny]

Still hardly impressive given that people got a day off.

Sure, but that is just how local elections are like in most countries, they are expected to have a lower turnout than national elections.

Anyway voting is over and turnout was 55.3%, although I'm not positive these are final numbers.

[danny]

After 10.3% counted in Jerusalem:
Berkovitch: 30.9%
Lion: 27.3%
Deitsch: 22.5%
Elkin: 19%

[danny]

Where do you find that? I can see nothing reporting in that Interior Ministry site.

That interior ministry site crashed and is useless, these numbers are from reporters on the ground, where i'm following Ynet and Kikar Hashabat.

[danny]

In Tel Aviv so far:

Huldai: 41%
Zamir: 36%
Harel: 16%

[danny]

19% counted in Jerusalem:
Lion: 29.7%
Berkovitch: 29.3%
Deitsch: 22%
Elkin: 18.7%

[danny]

Likud MK Jaki Levi has has won the race for mayor in Bet Shean, and will be replaced in the Knesset by Osnat Mark.

[danny]

The new Mayor of Nahariya, a right-wing periphery city, is a Labour member. Leader Gabbay is trying to tout this as an achievement.

The Loser gave a hilarious concession where he called the people of Naharia ungrateful.