High Court reinstates Haifa mayoral candidate, bans Elad contender

The High Court of Justice on Monday reinstated a front-running Haifa mayoral candidate in the October 30 local elections, while knocking a key candidate from the central ultra-Orthodox city of Elad out of the running.

Einat Kalisch Rotem had been disqualified by the Interior Ministry and the Haifa District Court last week, after her Labor party attorney submitted two candidates, including Kalisch Rotem, to the race, in violation of the election rules.

The High Court on Monday evening overturned the lower court’s decision.

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Kalisch Rotem is one of two candidates who pose a realistic challenge to incumbent Yona Yahav in the northern coastal city.

Yahav, a former Knesset member, has been mayor of Haifa since 2003. He is facing off against David Etzioni, a lawyer and former finance minister adviser; Mendy Saltzman, the director-general of the Haifa Port; Yisrael Savyon, the second Labor candidate and former director of the Haifa Municipality; and Avihu Hahn of the Haifa Green Party. Recent polls had placed Yahav, Kalisch Rotem, and Etzioni neck-and-neck, with the remaining candidates polling in the single digits.

Earlier Monday, the High Court upheld a ban on Yitzhak Pindrus, the Shas and Degel HaTorah candidate in Elad. It affirmed that though Pindrus,  a former mayor of Beitar Illit and former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, had relocated to Elad in recent months to run for mayor, his life continued to be based in the capital.

Pindrus had moved at the prodding of Shas and Degel HaTorah religious leaders, to the ire of rival ultra-Orthodox faction Agudath Yisrael. The other candidate in the race is the incumbent mayor, Yisrael Porush, of Agudath Yisrael.

The Haredi city had been mired in an angry internal ultra-Orthodox debate over the upcoming election, which has pitted its Ashkenazi Lithuanian and Sephardic constituents against its Hasidic ones.

Together, the Agudath Yisrael and Degel HaTorah factions form the Knesset party United Torah Judaism.

In local races, however, the Haredi groups have frequently found themselves at odds. In Jerusalem, Agudath Yisrael has backed its own candidate, Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Yossi Deitch, while Degel HaTorah and Shas have supported rival Moshe Lion.

Israel goes to municipal, local and regional council elections on October 30.  If mayoral candidates fail to garner 40 percent of the vote on that date, a second runoff will be scheduled between the top two contenders on November 13.

But even with the polls just over a week away, the Interior Ministry has not yet provided official confirmation on the 3,400 parties and dozens of candidates in the running.

Multiple attempts by The Times of Israel to obtain the information from the ministry since its October 10 deadline to publicize the lists have been met only with rebadurances that it will be released soon.