Kollek Seeking to Re-assemble a Wall-to-wall Coalition

The Labor Party’s loss of two city council seats in Jerusalem’s municipal elections Monday was only partly a personal setback for Mayor Teddy Kollek, election analysts said today. The 50 percent decline in the number of Arab voters and the disappointing turn-out of Jewish voters–60 percent here against 80 percent in the Tel Aviv municipal contest–were mainly responsible for Labor’s loss, experts said.

Only 12 percent of the 43,000 eligible voters in East Jerusalem cast ballots. If 20 percent of the Arab voters had gone to the polls as they did in the 1969 elections; the Labor ticket headed by Mayor Kollek would have won at least one more seat. The failure of many Jewish voters to cast municipal ballots was attributed to apathy.

Kollek’s principal opponent. Deputy Mayor Yehoshua Matza, of Likud, was virtually unknown and many voters were so sure of a Kollek victory they didn’t bother to vote, according to the analysts. Kollek’s setback came at the hands of many voters who cast ballots for opposition parties in the local contest because they were dissatisfied with Labor’s performance nationally.

Labor now has 14 seats in the city council. Likud gained an additional seat for a total of seven. Coalition bargaining is expected to be prolonged and difficult. But Kollek is expected finally to put together a working majority. He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that he hoped the compromises he will have to make with coalition partners will not be too great. “I am not going to agree to everything blindfolded,” he said. He indicated that he would try to revive the old wall-to-wall coalition encompassing all parties from Likud to the religious bloc.

But Kollek faces difficulties within his own party where he is regarded with suspicion by the old guard. He has had trouble in the past with Labor Party bosses who insisted on naming their own people as deputy mayors. The party may demand–with Kollek’s consent though not his blessing–an additional deputy mayor post despite the fact that Labor’s majority dropped from 16 to 14 seats. Such demand could complicate Kollek’s bargaining with the opposition parties to form a coalition.