32 parties approved to run in September 17 elections
Pirates' ballot: "It's all the same s**t"
By GIL HOFFMANThe Pirate party's participation in the April 9 elections has been vetted by Central Elections Committee(photo credit: Lahav Harkov)
The Central Elections Committee gave its approval on Sunday to 32 parties to run in the September 17 election, down from 47 in the April 9 race.The committee met on Sunday to reveal what each party requested its ballots say.Despite opposition from MK Rafi Peretz, the ballot for the Yamina party will say “Yamina, headed by Ayelet Shaked,” and then list the three parties that make up the list.Likud’s ballot will mention Benjamin Netanyahu, Blue and White’s both Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, and Labor-Gesher’s both Amir Peretz and Orly Levy-Abecassis. The Democratic Union’s slips will include Nitzan Horovitz, Stav Shaffir and Ehud Barak, but only their last names.Tiberias Mayor Ron Kobi’s Secular Right party has “fighting haredi coercion” on its ballot.The Pirate Party, which asked voters to wipe their behind with their ballot in the April race, this time relied on their voters’ knowledge of English profanity. The ballot says in Hebrew that “We are all in the same boat and it is all the same sailing.” The Hebrew word for sailing, if mispronounced, could be vocalized as “shit.”More than a dozen candidates were disqualified from running because they were found to have criminal backgrounds or jobs in the civil service.The party with the most disqualifications was Kama, a party formed by the wives of convicted polygamist Daniel Ambash. Ambash, who has six wives and 15 children, was sentenced to 26 years in prison in 2013 for sexual abuse and the detention of women and minors under conditions of slavery in Jerusalem and Tiberias.
