The deadline for candidates to enter the races in the municipal elections is September 27.
By GIL HOFFMANUpdated: SEPTEMBER 7, 2018 04:36Ze'ev Elkin(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
The October 30 contest for mayor of Jerusalem intensified this week, as the leading two announced candidates in the polls, Jerusalem Affairs Minister Ze’ev Elkin (Jerusalem Will Succeed) and city councilman Ofer Berkovich (Hitorerut), opened fire on each other.Elkin released a video portraying Berkovich as young, inexperienced and unqualified to be mayor. The video depicts the Hitorerut leader as mayor and being unable to handle the job. At the conclusion of the clip, Elkin sits down in the mayor’s chair and asks his secretary to connect him to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Berkovich attacked Elkin, because Jerusalem was named one of Israel’s dirtiest cities after Elkin served as both Jerusalem affairs minister and environmental protection minister. Elkin responded that the cleanliness of the city is the sole responsibility of the municipality in which Berkovich served as deputy mayor under outgoing mayor Nir Barkat.The Hitorerut leader also highlighted a complaint by the Movement for Quality Government to Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit accusing Elkin of misusing his ministry’s funds to co-sponsor a high profile conference in Jerusalem in which he was invited to speak. He said the NIS 700,000 the ministry allocated should have been spent on cleaning the city and moving the government’s offices that are illegally located in other cities to the capital.“It looks like a forbidden advancement of Minister Elkin’s personal interests in the race for Jerusalem mayor at the expense of the public’s interest using the funds of taxpayers,” the movement wrote Mandelblit.There was also infighting this week among the two parties that make up United Torah Judaism. Agudat Yisrael has endorsed deputy mayor Yossi Daitch, but he is not expected to run if he does not receive the support of Degel Hatorah, which is taking time making a decision. Agudat Yisrael warned Degel Hatorah that its support for Degel’s candidates in other cities with large haredi (ultra-Orthodox) populations would not be guaranteed if Degel does not endorse Daitch.The deadline for candidates to enter the races in the municipal elections is September 27.
