Local elections wrap up; third female mayor elected
Second round of municipal elections carried out in 38 communities. Braverman to take office in Petah Tikva, Meron in Afula, Fadalon in Herzliya. Third female mayor is elected: Yaela Maklis to replace Yosef Ben David in Yehud-Monosson
The Interior Ministry released the final results early Wednesday morning, and announced a victory for Itzhak Braverman in Petah Tikva with 57.7% of the votes, Moshe Fadalon in Herzliya (61.3%) and Hai Adiv in Hod HaSharon (62.5%).
Related stories:
- Municipal elections: Barkat takes J'lem, Huldai carries TA
- New Nazareth mayor declared
- Beit Shemesh: Hundreds rally against election results
The citizens Yehud-Monosson gave 65.6% of their votes to Yaela Maklis, who is now the third female mayor in Israel and joins two other elected female mayors – Miriam Feirberg in Netanya and Lizy Delaricha in Ganei Tikva. Maklis was pleased with the relatively large voter turnout, as long lines were noted by the voting stations, and said: "The citizens are thirsty for change."
Afula elected their new city mayor to be Yitzhak Meron with a 44% vote turnout, as he beat his opponent, incumbent mayor Avi Alkabetz, by only 200 votes.
A dramatic change took place in the village of Pardesiya, as Tal Gorky was elected over the incumbent mayor, Yitzhak Yemini, who has been in office for the past 41 years. Gorky received 50.9% of the votes. Prior to the results, Yemini announced he was on his way to his "last term in office", however the citizens of Pardesiya decided to send him to his retirement earlier than he expected.
Police reported some 100 unusual events were documented throughout the day. Six people were arrested and 16 were detained for questioning. Allegations were heard in Petah Tikva regarding the counterfeiting of ballots of mayoral candidate Itzhak Braverman, as it was claimed his name was misspelled on the ballots.
Additional results across the country: Incumbent Kiryat Tivon Mayor David Arieli was elected to stay in office with 63.9% of the votes. Mevaseret Zion elected Yoram Shimon (55%), Assaf Mintzer (57.7%) won in Elkana, Migdal chose Yisrael Amrusi (55.6%), Kiryat Shmona voted for Nissim Malka (52.3%), Shai Alon (61.4%) is the new mayor of Beit El and Hovav Zabari (51.3%) took the elections in Kiryat Ekron.
In the Bedouin city of Rahat, Talal al-Krinoui won town hall (59.6%) and in Kfar Kana, Mujahad Awuda did the same winning an impressive 97.5% of the vote.
Ahiya Raved, Omri Efraim, Hassan Shaalan, Maor Buchnik, Raanan Ben-Zur and Gilad Morag contributed to this report
- Receive Ynetnews updates
directly to your desktop
