The Orthodox Degel HaTorah party won a fairly comfortable victory in a local special election Monday, retaining one of its two Knesset seats claimed by the right-wing Tehiya party.
The election, in the religious township of Bnei Brak and neighboring Ramat Gan, both Tel Aviv suburbs, involved fewer than 1,500 voters.
It was ordered by the High Court of Justice because of allegations of fraud at two polling stations in the 1988 Knesset elections.
Tehiya, which initiated the complaint three years ago, blamed Likud for its failure Monday to add a fourth seat to its Knesset, faction.
Degel, which had been expected to do well in rigidly religious Bnei Brak, scored a dramatic reversal in largely secular Ramat Gan, where it polled 156 votes Monday compared with only 60 in the 1988 elections.
Tehiya picked up 60 votes in Bnei Brak, where it had none in 1988. Degel also did better there, polling 246 compared with 208 in 1988.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
