Religious forces in Kiryat Motzkin have come together to form a new alliance. Nachum Mazuz, the representative of the religious Zionist party and former member of the city council, has signed a joint running agreement with Tal Biton, the former chairman of the religious council in the city and representative of Shas. This agreement aims to unite the religious parties and increase their chances of success in the upcoming city council elections.
The union comes after both parties failed to pass the electoral threshold in the 2018 elections. A three-way run involving the Jewish Home, Shas, and the Lev party, supported by the National Union, split the votes, resulting in a failure for Mazuz and Shas. Mazuz fell short of 22 votes, while Shas was 38 votes away from passing the threshold. The third party, led by Avraham (Buma) in the Rashad, was also lacking several hundred votes.
Under the agreement, Mazuz will lead the joint list, with Biton following in second place and Yonatan Peretz in third. The hope is that the merger of the lists will secure two mandates for the party, as it should have been in the previous elections. If the united party had received the same number of votes it received individually in the previous elections, it would have won two mandates.
Bitton expressed his enthusiasm for the agreement, stating, “As the former chairman of the religious council in the city, with God’s help, I will bring great success to the city council as well, together with my faction partners, members of Nachum Mazuz.”
In Haifa, however, the religious Zionism and Shas parties will run separately. While the two parties join forces in Kiryat Motzkin, in Kiryat Shmuel, a neighborhood belonging to Haifa, they will run on separate lists. The Otzma Yehudit party will also be running, with Yossi Hanig, a resident of Kiryat Shmuel, running on behalf of religious Zionism.
The Jewish Home party in Haifa has previously only received one mandate in the last two municipal elections. It appears that in Haifa, they are taking a different approach by betting on a separate run.
The religious political landscape in Israel is undergoing changes and alliances as parties strategize to secure their positions in local governments. The upcoming city council elections will be a crucial test for these parties and will determine the direction of the religious Zionism movement.