Jerusalem Gears Up for First Serious Mayoral Contest in More Than 20 Years

Jerusalem is gearing up for its first serious mayoral contest in more than two decades as veteran Mayor Teddy Kollek, 82, takes on a vigorous challenger in former Health Minister Ehud Olmert of Likud.

Mayoral elections will be held in most of Israel’s towns in November.

Olmert, 46, triumphed impressively Monday in his party’s local primary election over former Knesset member Reuven Rivlin, a well-known Jerusalem figure and former chairman of the capital’s popular Betar Yerushalayim soccer team.

In a major upset in the Likud’s countrywide municipal primaries, the mayor of Kiryat Shmona, Prosper Azran, was defeated by his deputy, Yosef Chimi.

Both Rivlin’s and Azran’s defeats were attributed by some political observers to their allegiance to the David Levy faction within the Likud. Former Foreign Minister Levy and his followers are now firmly in opposition to the leadership of party Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu.

Last week, Levy demanded Netanyahu’s resignation after the police announced they were ending, without making any charges, an investigation of Netanyahu’s charge of political blackmail directed against him during the Likud’s leadership contest earlier this year.

Levy contends that Netanyahu’s accusations, indirectly leveled at Levy, were trumped up.

Olmert probably would have won the primary regardless of Rivlin’s connection to Levy. But the unexpectedly large margin of Olmert’s victory — 68 percent against 32 percent of the 6,800 ballots — may be attributable to the rank and file’s distaste for the power struggle in the movement.

Olmert is already molding his campaign image as a moderate, rather than as a traditional Likud candidate of the political right.

He had pledged to pull together a list of candidates for the City Council drawn from far beyond the confines of the Likud itself, whereas Rivlin sought to run on a “pure” Likud ticket.

KOLLEK DUMPS DEPUTY

Olmert, conscious of Kollek’s proven popularity, has avoided attacking the incumbent directly.

Rather, Olmert has suggested that Kollek is too old to run, and that his candidacy is merely a political tactic designed to retain the mayoralty for the Labor Party.

He has implied Kollek plans to hand over the position to the No. 2 person on his list, Nachman Shai, just months into the four-year term.

Kollek, although running on his nominally independent One Jerusalem ticket, is seen as affiliated to Labor.

Kollek last week announced that Shai, a popular former television reporter, would be No. 2 on his list. He thereby dumped his longtime deputy, Amos Mar-Haim, who was seen as lacking charisma. This drew bitter criticism from Mar-Haim, who claimed he had been duped by the mayor, and a cynical reaction from the national press.

Shai made a national name for himself as an army spokesman during the Persian Gulf War, when his soothing tones in radio broadcasts gave a sense of confidence to worried Israelis sitting in their sealed rooms.

More recently, he has headed the Second Channel, Israel’s new state-owned radio and TV station.

Kollek’s Achilles’ heel in the campaign will surely be his own public assertion, last year, that he would not run again. He even quipped that he himself would not support such an aged candidate.

Now, however, Kollek says he will quit only when he is certain that he is handing over the capital, with its sensitive political and religious problems, to a political moderate like himself.

He dismisses Olmert’s claim to that mantle, citing his challenger’s long and loyal service to the Likud, which Kollek regards as hard-line and insensitive toward Jerusalem’s Arab residents.