Elections in Haifa/according to Article 27A
In 35 local authorities in Israel, a second round of elections for the head of the authority will be held this Sunday.
18 of them, more than 50%, are Arab authorities.
In many of them the struggles are very close, very tough, very instinctive and very clannish.
The highest percentages of voting in Israel were registered in Arab municipalities, far above the total voting rate which stood at 53.8%: in the settlement of Ein Mahal 94%, in Sajur 93.3%, Kfar Manda 93.1%, Yerka 93%, Buayina-Nojidat 93%, Kabiya-Tabash - Hajajara 91.6% and Deir Hana 90.9%.
"High voting percentages usually indicate a tribal voting pattern, bringing in the uncle in the wheelchair and the grandmother leaning on a cane, because every vote is important," says someone in the field.
However, this trend is weakening, and a new, more modern trend is emerging, of A vote in favor of those who put the settlement above family interests. Paradoxically, perhaps, then the turnout is also lower. A prominent example is the city of Umm al-Fahm, where out of 40,789 eligible voters, only 51% voted, similar to the turnout in the general summary in Israel. In Baka al- Garbia voted "only" 70.6% and Bejat voted 72.1% of those with the right to vote, in a close battle that some say is a clear example of the trend of breaking away from the tradition of clan voting.
Samir Mahamid, the mayor of Umm al-Fahm with Sheikh Raad Salah, former mayor and head of the outlawed northern faction of the Islamic Movement/Yoav Itayal
More and more people here see the local government as a service provider," says Dr. Samir Mahmid, who last week overwhelmingly won the trust of the residents of Umm al-Fahm, with 91% of voters voting for him.
Regardless of which clan they belong to, this is an unprecedented achievement in the city.
No wonder he is the favorite among the candidates to soon also serve as chairman of the committee of heads of the Arab authorities in Israel. "For years it was customary to say that the voter is ungrateful, we see that there is actually gratitude and that is why people voted the way they voted," says Mahamid. "Also, the results were received quietly, with understanding And in this respect, it indicates the maturity of the voter who accepts that the voter has said his word, and this should not be taken lightly either.
Baum El Fahm is not new.
This trend started since the Islamic movement put up a candidate.
It comes with a lot of work.
The head of an authority needs the resident to be at the forefront of his mind, and the issue of transparency is very important.
I believe that what is happening here in the triangle foreshadows the general trend.
It is gaining momentum and I hope it will spread throughout the country as soon as possible.
In Baka al-Gharbia, they have already voted this way twice, in Jat there is a movement of young people that is contesting."
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Indeed, not far from Umm al-Fahm, in the settlement of Jat, which is considered the richest Muslim settlement in Israel, Ashraf Khandaklo (28.8% in the first round), the head of the "Altala" ("The Hill") list, is competing in the second round against Hussam Vad (30.2%).
The 35-year-old Khandeklo, an engineer at Intel, 35 years old, a graduate of computer science at the Technion, is married to a Technion Ph.D. student at the end of nanotechnology and has one child, Hadi, one year old.
His sister, the lawyer Raiva Khandeklo, was recently appointed as the project manager for the fight against crime in the committee of heads of Arab authorities.
His other sister, a nurse by profession, has a master's degree in public health.
The residents of the village of Jeth are almost members of the same family.
The Vatad family is estimated to have about 3,000 voters, Gera, Abu Asaba and Abu Bakr are four clans and cousins who belong to one clan that has thousands of voters in the village.
The Khandaklo family has 192 voters, but in the first round "Altala" led by Ashraf Khandaklo won four mandates (30.7%), for the first time in a settlement where the votes were always very divided between the lists.
"This shows us that people really understand the idea and want the change," says Khandaklo to Walla!, "In our village, until today most people would vote with their family, clan and personal interest, but we have come to realize that the situation in the village is not progressing and we are not where we should be for the village which has many academics and ranks 5 in the socio-economic index, which is high in Arab settlements."
"We came with the message that we will take the individual success of each member of the village and make it the collective success of the settlement. For this purpose, the voting should be based on ability and not according to the clan so that good and professional people will lead the village. We promise to promote the organizational culture within the council and the service to the citizen, Promote the issue of planning and construction and increase the areas where it is possible to build in an orderly manner and promote formal and informal education - invest in the youth. That's where everything starts."
Ashraf Khandaklo/Official website, Altala
"What we are seeing is part of the change that Arab society is going through and this is a statement by the young people," says the nurse, lawyer Raiva Khandeklo.
"The educated middle class takes responsibility for itself and its future. Jet is a strong settlement with a high percentage of educated people who have created a new type of community. The young people behind the list are social activists who have been taking on community projects within the settlement for years, from cleaning the cemetery to picking olives and assisting in agriculture. The innovation It is that now they stand behind a list and a candidate."
I voted for a rival candidate to a candidate from my clan," said Lavala! a forty-year-old doctor from the settlement of Araba, which has one of the highest rates of doctors in the world. "I looked at what he had to offer and that was my decision.
This is not uncommon among my friends.
Our generation is independent in its thinking and does not need to be told who to vote for."
Young, non-tribal lists have entered the councils, which is a positive and encouraging sign of the change in the traditional trend," says Amir Basharat, CEO of the Council of Heads of Arab Local Authorities in Israel. Thirty mayors of councils and cities were replaced in the first round of elections is evidence that the Arab citizens are beginning to change their direction in the local authority elections and are looking at the professional and representative parties outlining a new policy, and not only through a narrow prism of personal-family interest."
Ashraf Khandaklo/Official website, Altala
But not everyone agrees that this is a trend or even a correct reading of the situation.
"The clan is still very dominant," says Yosef Makleda, CEO of the Stat-Net polling institute specializing in Arab society, who surveyed dozens of Arab communities for the first round. "The clan takes care of the collective interest and within it the interest of the individual.
In my opinion, it is even getting stronger against the background of the economic distress and the rising crime in Arab society and the need of every family to protect the personal safety of the family members."
He translates the exceptional phenomena in a completely different way: "What happens now sometimes is that several small families get together and behave exactly like a clan large, in order to pay tribute to the historically ruling clan.
I surveyed 35 settlements and about seventy candidates.
Few ask at all about the resident's priorities.
The majority want to hear from the respondents who they think is going to win, because they need to prove to the voters that they are strong and capable of winning."
A man votes in the mayoral elections, February 27, 2024/Flash 90, Jonathan Zindel
We are checking it," says Dr. Doron Navot, head of the Jewish-Arab Center at the University of Haifa, "We first of all want to understand the massive turnout in the local elections in the Arab authorities versus the Jewish authorities versus lower voting rates in the national elections. This is important first of all because It is clear that the Arab public has not yet exhausted its electoral potential at the national level, while at the municipal level in general the situation is bad, and this massive vote actually preserves the bad situation."
According to Dr. Navot, "This probably really happens where the voting is tribal and regarding the previous elections we tested it with Dr. Mohamed Halyaila and Yosef Makalda and it is tested, empirically and really scientifically."
He says that "this tribal pattern also explains the massive vote and, in my understanding, the bad situation in the local government. On the national level, this is less and there are more dominant feelings of the inability to influence and also a feeling of distrust in the Arab parties."
Will it change?
"In my opinion, it's completely open," Navot answers, "I don't think we have any reason to believe that there will necessarily be changes in these voting patterns. On the national level, in my opinion, it very much depends on whether a Jewish leader will arise who will declare out loud, 'You Arabs are our partners.' On the local level, as long as politics The normal is not that strong or significant, so the ability to break the clan structure tends to zero. If there is a significant change at the national level, it will also seep down. But for that to happen, a change has to happen among us, the Jews."
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