For Kollek, Sixth Mayoral Victory Presents Range of New Challenges

Teddy Kollek was re-elected as mayor of Jerusalem in last week’s municipal elections, but he is not rejoicing.

The capital, considered a stronghold of Likud, gave Kollek an overwhelming vote of confidence with 58 percent of Jerusalemites voting “Teddy” as their mayor for his sixth term in office.

But Kollek’s own special ticket, the One Jerusalem party, lost its longtime 17-seat majority in the 31-member City Council.

This loss was caused in part by the strong showing of the Citizens Rights Movement-Shinui list, which supports Kollek but chose to run separately.

Moreover, Kollek also failed to get the two council mandates the Arabs customarily gave him in prior elections. Only 3 percent of East Jerusalem Arabs turned up at the polls, after Palestinian nationalists called an election boycott.

During the next five years, Kollek will have a tougher time running Jerusalem than ever. As tensions among the diverse city’s various groups grow, Kollek’s party will have to govern with a lean 11-seat presence in the City Council — a drop even the worst of pessimists had not projected.

And so the man who somehow kept peace between religious and secular, Ashkenazi and Sephardi, and Arab and Jew, is now faced with a position he had hoped he could avoid: a coalition with the religious parties, who won big and now seek to change the religious status quo.

DEMANDS FROM RELIGIOUS PARTIES

The five religious lists — Agudat Yisrael, Shas, Degel HaTorah, National Religious Party and Emunah Women — will together have 12 representatives on the City Council, a result of demography and organizational talents.

Kollek, for his part, promised that local youth would not have to “emigrate” to Tel Aviv on Friday nights because of a lack of entertainment on Shabbat.

But Kollek is also a political realist. He knows that with religious representation of 40 percent, one must reach an understanding with the religious bloc.

A week after the municipal elections, it is still unclear which way the new coalition will go. Kollek is likely to try to form a coalition with the more moderate religious lists — NRP, Emunah and Degel HaTorah.

Partnership with the extremes in both directions presents problems. In an initial reaction following the election, Kollek specifically ruled out a coalition with CRM, which has led the fight against “religious coercion” by the Orthodox. The mayor charged the party had been “divisive and did not speak the truth.”

The local Shas leader, Rabbi Nissim Zeev, known for his radical views against Arabs, gave an ultimatum for joining a coalition with Kollek: He would support the mayor only if movie theaters were closed on Friday nights and the status quo on religious observance was rolled back to what it was two years ago.

But despite these misgivings, quiet negotiations continued this week with these groups as possible partners.