Voting in the Histadrut elections got off to a slow start this morning but picked up some steam in the afternoon. By noon, however, only 15 percent of the electorate had cast their ballots. Voting was especially slow in Eilat where the public is dissatisfied with the way Histadrut is handling a dock-workers’ dispute. A heat wave which sent the mercury soaring past the 90 degree mark at eight o’clock this morning apparently kept many voters away from the polls.
To avoid possible incidents, polling placed for East Jerusalem residents transferred to West Jerusalem. Seven East Jerusalem Arabs who were candidates on the Labor Party-Mapam alignment list withdrew their names at the last minute under pressure of threats from Arab extremists. An eighth Arab, an Israeli citizen who moved to Jerusalem after the Six-Day War, remained on the list. Today’s vote will select delegates to the 11th Histadrut convention which will, in turn, elect members to the governing bodies of the labor federation. The results are expected to be known tomorrow.
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