Prof. Alon Tal reelected as Green Party head

Green Movement leader still undecided about joining Livni party's Knesset list.

By SHARON UDASIN
Alon Tal 370 (photo credit: BGU)
Alon Tal 370
(photo credit: BGU)
Prof. Alon Tal will continue to serve as the head of the Green Movement, the party announced on Monday after two days of delay due to voting problems.
Tal, an environmental policy expert at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, has been instrumental in creating much of Israel’s environmental framework, founding the legal advocacy group Adam Teva V’Din-Israel Union for Environmental Defense and the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. In addition to being among the founders of the Green Movement, Tal also served in the past as the chairman of Life and Environment, the umbrella organization of Israel’s environmental groups.
Results of the vote, which took place on Friday in Tel Aviv, were delayed because the party management discovered that a few of the voters had registered inappropriately, Tal told The Jerusalem Post. While the party was able to sort out the issue, Tal said his margin would have been wide enough to not make a difference regardless.
“As a party which believes [in] fanatically good government and clean politics, we have zero tolerance for any type of corruption,” Tal said.
In second place in the Green Movement internal elections was once again Racheli Tidhar-Caner, who will serve as Tal’s co-chair. Hadas Shachnai, a former Tel Aviv city council member, achieved third place and will serve as the secretary-general of the party.
Click for full JPost coverage
Click for full JPost coverage
While the members approved an agreement with Tzipi Livni to run on her Knesset list during the party’s convention on Friday, they still have not officially decided on joining the list and are still reviewing other options, according to Tal.
“We are happy to run ourselves and we are happy to do our work in a coalition,” he said.
All in all, Tal said he was grateful for the chance to once again lead the Green Movement.
“It was a hard fought primary, lots of emotion,” Tal said. “Sometimes people went too far. But in the end I’m extremely grateful that such a diverse and eclectic group representative of different factions in our party voted for me by such a wide margin.”