Secular candidate elected Jerusalem mayor (1st Lead)

Nov 12, 2008, 9:41 GMT

Jerusalem - High-tech entrepreneur Nir Barkat, who billed himself as the 'secular candidate' was elected mayor of Jerusalem, results from Tuesday's municipal elections, announced early Wednesday, showed.

   Barkat won 52 per cent of the vote, compared to 43 per cent for ultra-Orthodox politician Meir Porush, following tallies from all 707 polling stations in the city.

Controversial Russian-born billionaire Arkady Gaydamak garnered only 3.6 per cent of the votes, in part because East Jerusalem Palestinians, whom he especially canvassed in his campaign, largely boycotted the election.

A fourth candidate, Dan Birron, of the Green Leaf party, which advocates the legalization of marijuana, failed to win even one per cent of the vote.

Barkat will replace Uri Lupoliansky, who in 2003 was elected the city's first ultra-Orthodox mayor, but chose not to run for a second term.

In the vote for Tel Aviv mayor, incumbent Ron Huldai fought off a determined challenge by left-wing legislator Dov Khenin to win his third five-year term. Despite predictions that the contest would go into a second round, Huldai won 50 per cent of the vote, and Khenin 34 per cent. Oren Shachor, a retired army general, placed third with 10.5 per cent per cent of the vote.

Khenin, who ran under the slogan of 'a city for everyone', fought what he saw as the increasing trend of Tel Aviv to become a city only for well-off inhabitants.

He said he would continue his fight for the city from the Knesset benches.

   Incumbent Yona Yahav also won another term in the contest in Haifa, Israel's third largest city, but the mayor of Beersheba, Yakov Turner, a former national police commissioner, was turfed out of office, losing heavily to his former deputy Rubik Danilovich.

In recent years, the results of Israeli municipal contests have had little or no bearing on national elections, as most candidates run at the head of lists promoting local, as opposed to national, issues.

Nonetheless, all major Israeli political parties expressed satisfaction with the results, saying mayoral candidates or municipal lists affiliated with them had scored impressive victories or increased their support.

The nation-wide voter turnout stood at 40 per cent. In Tel Aviv it was almost 37 per cent, up from 29 per cent in the last municipal elections in 2003, and 41 per cent in Jerusalem, compared to 37 per cent five years ago.