Israel is scheduled to hold municipal elections Oct. 30. Jerusalem’s Mayor Nir Barkat has announced that he will not run again for the position but will instead try for a spot on the Likud Knesset list in the next general elections. And so the Jerusalem mayoral race has taken up a new dimension. The Likud Party has yet to announce who will be its candidate.
Minister Ze’ev Elkin, after concluding that he was not going to be receiving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's blessings, at least not at this early stage, announced May 31 that he had decided to run for mayor of Jerusalem anyway. The senior Likud official explained his decision by saying that he believes the position presents a challenge on a nationwide scale and that he is, therefore “willing to give up his position as a senior minister and Cabinet member for it.”