WORLD> Middle East
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WORLD> Middle East
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Secular candidate wins Jerusalem mayor race
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-12 15:17 JERUSALEM -- Secular businessman Nir Barkat won an election for mayor of Jerusalem against a powerful ultra-Orthodox Jewish leader early Wednesday in a race that again exposed the deep divide between religious and secular Israelis.
With nearly all of the results in, Israel's Channel 2 TV reported that just over 52 percent of the city's voters had supported Barkat. That tally was matched by the country's two other main television stations and the Web sites of all three major newspapers. Barkat claimed victory before dawn. "I'm aware of the depth of the challenge and the complexity of the mission. Now is the time to work together for the good of the city," Barkat, a technology investor and former paratroops officer, told his supporters. He promised to be "everybody's mayor." His opponent, ultra-Orthodox strongman Meir Porush, received just over 43 percent of the vote, according to Channel 2 and the Web site of Israel's largest newspaper, Yediot Ahronot. Barkat will succeed Uri Lupolianski, the first ultra-Orthodox Jew to serve as mayor of Jerusalem. Israelis went to voting stations around the country, picking mayors and city councils, but local issues and strong independent candidates overshadowed clashes between the major parties three months before national elections. In Jerusalem, the three largest parties failed to field candidates for mayor for the first time, leaving the race to representatives of two of the city's three distinctive and often squabbling groupings. Porush, 53, an imposing figure on the ultra-Orthodox national political scene for years, his trademark bushy red beard going gray now, ran an intense campaign against Barkat, a venture capitalist in his second try to win the mayor's job. In an incident of violence in Jerusalem, police broke up a demonstration by extremist ultra-Orthodox Jews who do not recognize Israel. Police said they were trying to prevent people from voting. The appearances of the two rivals underlined their differences. Porush wears a long, black coat and large, black skullcap, as do the tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews he represents. The bareheaded, casually dressed Barkat reflects the embattled, dwindling secular Jewish residents of Jerusalem. With a high birth rate and government financial support, ultra-Orthodox Jews are a growing proportion of Jerusalem's population, while many secular Jews are leaving the city because of their lack of control and rising municipal tax rates. Left out was the third sector, Jerusalem's Palestinian residents. They make up a third of the city's population of 750,000 and have the right to vote after Israel annexed their section of the city in 1967. But most boycott instead of tacitly recognizing Israeli control by taking part in city elections. Palestinians claim their section of Jerusalem as the capital of the state they hope to create. The mayor of Jerusalem has no official standing in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, but one area of agreement between Porush and Barkat, and the other two candidates who are seen as having little chance of victory, is opposition to division of Jerusalem as part of a peace deal. Instead, the two leading candidates favor building thousands more apartments for Israelis in the disputed part of the city, angering Palestinians. More mundane issues face the incoming mayor. Financially strapped because a large proportion of its residents are poor, downtown Jerusalem has become shabby and dirty. In the past year it has also become a dusty construction zone, with the building of a light rail tying up traffic and angering residents and merchants alike. |
