The sleepy fight in Tel Aviv/official website, no
Next Tuesday, 27.2, the local government elections will be held, and the world, it seems, is not quite like a concoction.
Even the veteran and experienced election officials in Israel do not remember a system with such low levels of involvement and interest.
Certainly not in the local authorities, where the elections these days invite storms saturated with passions and dramas.
This time, it seems, the drama is that there is no drama.
When there is a war on the front that the people of Israel are licking their wounds every day, the local elections pale and reflect an anomaly that it seems that none of us, campaigners and candidates alike, have any previous experience with.
The lack of involvement and public interest is reflected in almost every aspect related to the election campaign.
The billboards remain quite transparent this time, next to other issues that are at the forefront of public interest (for example, the kidnapped campaign).
The survey questionnaires receive a lower response rate than usual.
We won't even start talking about WhatsApp messages and text messages that point to links that contain mountains of words about topics that simply don't interest us at the moment.
Our children in Gaza, who cares now about the trimming on the sidewalk?
The candidates in Haifa/image processing, Reuven Cohen, spokeswoman for the Haifa municipality Micah Brickman Adrian Herbstein Erez Michaeli Shutterstock
The mediocre will win
This is exactly the anomaly:
the elections that deal with the things that most affect our lives and the lives of our children, in education, personal security, cleanliness and a host of other day-to-day matters, in elections where our ability to influence is greater than in the general elections - our indifference to them is higher than ever.
The many Knesset election campaigns in recent years probably did not contribute to this high threshold of sensitivity either.
Elections in Israel are no longer a holiday for democracy, it is at most a day that reminds us that something in our system is not working.
But if history always repeats itself, this war will probably end one day, or become a kind of war routine.
As part of this routine, we will return to being interested in what is happening in our yard and neighborhood.
In the girl's garden.
What do I do with my property tax?
in life itself.
It is already a process that has started for most of us.
None of us will remain the same person after 7/10, yet our lives will continue.
They always go on.
Given that the voting percentages will be reasonable and the results will reflect the true distribution of the population, the indifference to the upcoming elections mainly serves incumbent mayors, whose satisfaction with their work is moderate or higher.
Where things work, people will seek stability.
Where there is a head (or head) with weak public sentiment, and where color and sectarian struggles take place - there can be dramas.
In such places, the campaigns are already louder, but only relatively.
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To the full article
Local election cards/image processing, Eyal Margolin, Olivier Fitosi/Flash 90
The terrain will speak louder than the campaigns
Raz Tsipris/PR
It can still change.
Interest in these elections will increase as we get closer to them and as public awareness of the Shabbat date increases (sign up: Tuesday, 27.02).
The Ministry of the Interior also launched a campaign (great campaign!) and the engines are starting to heat up.
It has already happened more than once that a low voter turnout was expected in certain elections, and in the end the indicators pretty much balanced out.
There is such concern this time as well, probably more than usual.
I hope that this time too we will be deceived and the people of Israel will go out to vote.
In the end, in campaigns swallowed by the real news, the ability of candidates to build an array that drives as many supporters as possible to the polls on the designated date is what will decide the election.
This time the terrain and mechanisms will speak louder than the campaigns.
It depends on the rain, it depends on the turnout, it also depends on the situation in the war in Gaza and the north in the days leading up to the elections and on the day itself, it depends on a million and one things, but mostly it depends on you.
If only you would understand that going out to vote is not only a civic duty, but a supreme right to influence issues that will very soon interest you again, in the place that most affects your life, under your house.
You don't want the trim to stay there forever, do you?
Raz Tsipris is a political campaigner and co-owner of Sosenko Tsipris.
Full disclosure:
Tsipris takes part in campaigns for local authorities and there is no reference to specific cities or cases.
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