"There are no elections here," the kibbutz secretary replied when a 5050 activist came to the kibbutz secretariat to submit her candidacy to the council plenum. She was shocked to hear this response, and a slight inquiry revealed that indeed for 20 years the same representative has been sitting in the plenum, even though he was never elected. It doesn't seem strange to anyone on the kibbutz until 2023. And in about a month, the kibbutz will have to choose a candidate for the council plenum. For the first time, there is also a candidate.
Local elections are held once every five years, as opposed to Knesset elections – this name changes, and we have seen that in the past four years there have been five elections. What we manage to fix in the upcoming municipal elections will affect the next five years in each and every municipality. These are critical elections in every city and council in Israel, even in the kibbutz in the north, where they were accustomed to not having elections, but this year they will get used to it differently thanks to one kibbutz member who took care of it.
We have become accustomed to thinking that the Knesset elections are the most important elections. The political wars of right and left are being waged there, but for several months now, we, in Project 5050, have been active at the municipal level. The plenum of the council is where decisions are made about our home, the street, our neighborhood and our city. There decisions are made on the budgets of education, sports, culture. It is there that decisions are made about public space and urban planning. These are all important decisions that affect the lives of each and every one of us. For years we abandoned this arena. Voter turnout is low in many places, and in terms of gender, the figures are shameful: only 14 mayors and councillors out of 257 nationwide. Out of plenum members there are only 16% plenary members on average and there are 72 council plenums with 0 women, many of them regional councils such as the Zevulun or Lachish councils, and Hazor Haglilit also has 0 plenum members. With this data, we started the journey of Project 5050 ten months ago.
On Thursday, 21.09, lists were submitted to the Ministry of the Interior that will take part in the upcoming elections. After many efforts by activists all over the country, over 100 lists committed to an equal list, and that instead of 1 or 2 there would be candidates. That's a huge turnaround compared to past data. We've gotten used to seeing lists of men forward and women backward, but we decided to put an end to this phenomenon. In order for there to be a more equal council plenum, the distribution must be equal in advance, and it is gratifying to see many lists that commit to this. Even in kibbutzim and moshavim, where elections are not by list but by representatives, for the first time there are dozens of female representatives who have presented their candidacy.
In the plenum of the council, decisions are made on the budgets for education, sports and culture. It is there that decisions are made about public space and urban planning. These are all important decisions that affect the lives of each and every one of us. For years we abandoned this arena
In about a month, local elections will be held. Once every five years, we have the opportunity to make a correction that hasn't been done here for 75 years. Vote only for equal lists, insert lists of 5050 into the plenum. So that in the plenum of the council they will make good decisions for the entire public - for men and women, for girls and for boys. So that there will be better street lighting, so that girls' sports teams will receive budgets like the boys, so that Independence Day stages will feature singers and not just singers. Contrary to what the kibbutz secretary said, there are elections, and in these elections we have come to bring about a revolution because equality is good for all of us, and this is our watch.
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