A lawmaker from the coalition Kulanu party declared Sunday she is going to run for Jerusalem mayor within the upcoming municipal elections, becoming a member of a crowded area of candidates vying for the management of Israel’s capital.
With her announcement, MK Rachel Azaria grew to become the primary feminine candidate to enter this 12 months’s mayoral race.
“I entered politics for Jerusalem when the situation in the city wasn’t simple and the negative migration was at its peak,” Azaria mentioned in a assertion. “I was called to the task and I answered.”
Azaria, a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem and metropolis council member for the Yerushalmim party, described her resolution as a homecoming after three years within the Knesset.
“The growing public desire to see more women contend for and become a part of the national and local leadership, along with the calls and support of many residents from different sectors, as well as my deep personal desire to act for the good of Jerusalem, brought me to the decision to return home to the place where my heart is,” she mentioned.
The Jerusalem-born Azaria, 40, thanked Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, the Kulanu party chief, for inviting her to hitch his party and function one among its Knesset members after the March 2015 elections.
“Now, with more experience and public roles, I am returning to work for Jerusalem — from Jerusalem,” she mentioned.
Moshe Kahlon (R) and Rachel Azaria shake fingers at a press convention in Jerusalem asserting Azaria will be a part of the Kulanu party on January 6, 2015. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Azaria’s entry to the mayoral race made her the third serving lawmaker to declare her candidacy, together with Jerusalem Affairs Minister Ze’ev Elkin and Zionist Union MK Nachman Shai.
Other outstanding candidates embrace Deputy Mayor Moshe Lion, who misplaced to Mayor Nir Barkat within the 2015 elections, and Ofer Berkovich, the 34-year-old head of the Hitorerut faction. Berkovich, a metropolis council member and former deputy mayor, enjoys the help of the secular public and a number of the metropolis’s extra liberal non secular residents.
A pair of lesser recognized candidates have additionally introduced they'll run on a secular ticket whereas two ultra-Orthodox deputy mayors have signaled their curiosity in operating, hoping to capitalize on the 32 % of the town’s inhabitants that identifies as Haredi — and whose voter share is even larger because the metropolis’s Arab residents typically boycott the municipal vote.
Barkat, who introduced in March he wouldn't search a third time period and as an alternative run for the Knesset with the ruling Likud party, has endorsed Elkin, a fellow Likud member and ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.