Voters throughout Haifa lined up Tuesday to vote in the municipal elections, with the 31 seats on the city council and the Mayor’s Office on the line.
There are a few candidates running in the mayoral race. To win, they need 40% of the vote in the election, if this fails, the vote goes to a runoff between the top two candidates.
The current mayor, Einat Kalisch-Rotem was elected in 2018, winning against the 15-year incumbent at the time Yona Yahav. But for most residents, there is a distinct motto to this year’s election: Not Kalisch!
The Jerusalem Post spoke to some local residents about their views on the election, which issues are important to Haifa, which candidates have their support, and of course how they feel about the pigs – and I’m not talking about the cops.
Some of the residents who voted in the previous election voted for the current mayor, while others couldn’t remember but said it was neither Kalisch nor Yahav.
All of the residents the Post spoke to said they would not be voting for Kalisch, but they also roundly rejected voting for legacy candidate Yahav.
The residents also picked separate lists and candidates.
Who are Haifa residents voting for?
Danny, who has lived in Haifa since 2002, split his vote, voting Likud for the city council Kiril Karetnik for mayor, saying he wasn’t impressed by Yahav and that he liked Karetnik’s fiscal conservatism.
Moshe, a resident since 2015, voted for David Etzioni for both council and mayoral elections. He said that he thought Etzioni had the best chance of beating Yahav and that he was opposed to the former mayor coming back out of principle, saying Yahav had been in charge for far too long.
Noy, a lifetime resident of Haifa, said that she would be voting for Zvika Barbi and his list. She said she felt that other candidates were not so clean politically, and that Kalisch was worse than Yahav. She felt that Barbi listened to the locals, citing WhatsApp groups he was in with local residents.
Rebekah, a resident of Haifa since 2014, said that she was still unsure about who she would be voting for, but that she would be disappointed if Yahav was reelected. She also felt that the mayoral election would go to a runoff.
The biggest issues the residents brought up ranged from environmental to infrastructure to the economy.
One issue raised across the board was the need to create space for young people, from entertainment, to jobs, to places to hang out. This was cited as a big problem for the city as it draws young people to move to other areas of the country, notably the Center. Although the solutions the residents proposed were diverse, they all hit across a similar vein, that young people who want to stay in the city often cannot stay, due to the lack of good jobs and affordable housing.
Failing infrastructure was also a big concern, with road quality being pointed to as a big problem. Noy mentioned it was quite dangerous for her small car, which can’t handle the unmaintained roads.
Most residents said that national politics had little bearing on their local vote. They all said this was a good thing, saying it gave local politics a less ideological feeling and put the focus more on practical issues affecting the local community.
The last questions asked were relating to Haifa’s famous pig problem, what residents thought was the best solution or who had the best solution.
All the residents took the problem seriously and saw real issues with the current handling of the wild boars. Both Danny and Moshe said they saw culling as the best solution, although they both questioned Yahav’s policy that culling pigs outside the city would actually prevent them from entering the city.
Noy meanwhile said there was no solution and that the city was built on the pigs natural habitat so they will keep coming back. She suggested training some to go to certain feeders rather than searching the whole neighborhood but said this was just one suggestion.
Rebekah linked the pig problem to other issues such as the garbage problem, saying that attempts to improve the situation would be impossible so long as the pigs continued to harass the city’s garbage bins. She also felt that too much money was being spent protecting them and that it could be spent in wiser ways to mitigate the problem.
Although these were the main electoral issues, one resident mentioned that they had quite disliked how heavily they were bombarded with negative campaign ads, especially via SMS, saying they felt that it was an improper way to conduct a campaign, and that it had swayed them against certain
