Municipal elections in Haifa: Who will locals elect in Israel's 3rd largest city?

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.

A few candidates are 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 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 supported the current mayor; others couldn’t remember who they voted for 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 and Kirill 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 mayor, saying he believed Etzioni had the best chance of beating Yahav. Moshe was also 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 she would be voting for Zvika Barbi and his list. She said she felt other candidates were not politically “clean” and that Kalisch was worse than Yahav. Barbi has been listening to the locals, she added, citing WhatsApp groups he participated in with them.

Rebekah, a resident of Haifa since 2014, said she was still unsure about who she would be voting for, but she would be disappointed if Yahav was reelected. She also expects that the mayoral election will go to a runoff.

The biggest issues the residents raised ranged from the environment to infrastructure to the economy. One issue raised across the board was the need to create space for young people, including entertainment, employment, and venues where they could socialize. The lack of such resources has been drawing them to other areas of the country, notably the center. Although the solutions the residents proposed were diverse, they all agreed that young people who want to stay in the city are often forced to leave due to a lack of good jobs and affordable housing.

Failing infrastructure was another major concern, with road quality being cited as a big problem. Noy mentioned that it was quite dangerous to drive her small car in the city with its unmaintained roads.

MOST RESIDENTS said that national politics had little bearing on their local vote. They all agreed that this was a good thing, as it gave local politics a less ideological feel and put the focus on practical issues affecting the local community.

The last questions concerned Haifa’s famous pig problem and what residents thought was the best solution or who among the candidates had the best solution. All the residents take it seriously and consider the current handling of the wild boars problematic. Both Danny and Moshe said they saw culling as the best solution, although they both questioned Yahav’s policy that culling pigs outside of Haifa would actually prevent them from entering the city.

In Noy’s opinion, there is no solution, as the city was built on the pigs’ natural habitat and, therefore, they will keep coming back. One suggestion she had was training them to go to particular feeders rather than searching an entire neighborhood.

Rebekah linked the pig problem to other issues, such as the garbage problem, saying that attempts to improve the situation would be impossible as long as the pigs continued knocking over the 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 disliked how heavily they were bombarded with negative campaign ads, especially via SMS, and that it was an improper way to conduct a campaign, adding that it had swayed them against certain candidates.