JERUSALEM — Next week’s vote for mayor of Jerusalem will be unprecedented: For the first time since the reunification of the city in 1967, no major national figure is running.
The front-runners are three candidates who until now were little known: a hi-tech multimillionaire, a fervently religious provider of auxiliary medical equipment and a loyal Likud Party functionary.
Likud leaders wanted former Finance Minister Dan Meridor, the man Menachem Begin predicted one day would be prime minister, to take the job. He politely declined.
Labor heavyweights Avraham Burg, Matan Vilnai, Dahlia Itzik and Ophir Pines-Paz all briefly toyed with the idea of running, but chose not to.
That left the field open to Nir Barkat, 43, director of BRM, a venture capital firm worth an estimated $250 million; acting Mayor Uri Lupoliansky, 51, founder of Yad Sarah, the biggest volunteer organization in the country; and Deputy Mayor Yigal Amedi, 47, a Likud activist who has been involved in local party politics since his teens.
Tuesday’s election comes as the city’s future is more uncertain than ever: As momentum builds for new peace talks under the “road map” plan, Jerusalem’s fate is sure to be reopened as the Palestinians demand the eastern part of the city for the capital of their expected state.
The reason for this year’s election partly explains why major national players aren’t lining up for the race.
Former Mayor Ehud Olmert was forced to resign after being elected to the Knesset on the Likud ticket in January, because of a new law prohibiting Knesset members or Cabinet ministers from serving as mayors at the same time. Had Meridor, Burg or any of the other national politicians run, they would have had to leave behind the Knesset — and their national leadership aspirations — at least for the foreseeable future.
Olmert’s critics argue that he used the mayoral office to resurrect his national political career so blatantly that no one else would feel comfortable doing the same. All three front-runners feel obligated to stress that they would be “full-time” mayors in a way politicians with national aspirations never could.
Each is convinced he has a special contribution to make.
Amedi, a self-made man from the poor Nahlaot neighborhood, claims to have an innate understanding of the city’s residents and their needs.
Barkat is convinced he can revolutionize the way the city operates by applying the same standards of excellence that made him rich.
If he wins, Barkat would be the first mayor elected on a non-party ticket.
Lupoliansky’s flagship is Yad Sarah, which loans medical equipment to the sick and infirm — religious or secular, Jew or Arab — virtually free of charge. He claims its success is evidence of his ability to run large organizations, and that he will run the city in the same non-discriminatory way.
Lupoliansky, who became the city’s first fervently religious mayor when he took over from Olmert in February, says he hopes to create a more caring community in which people from all sectors live in harmony.
But running a city holy to three religions, at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with more than 3,000 years of history — and a population of 670,000 that is the largest, poorest and most ethnically diverse in the country — will take more than sloganeering.
Recent polls show Barkat and Lupoliansky running neck and neck at around 40 percent, with Amedi winning 10 to 15 percent. If no candidate wins 40 percent on the first ballot, there will be a runoff between the top two finishers.
The big question is whether the new mayor will be able to grow in stature and restore the city to its former glory.
That could depend on events outside his control — particularly on whether the road map ends terrorism, brings back tourists and investors and re-establishes Jerusalem, the holy pilgrim city, as a symbol of peace and spirituality.