The 57 year-old bureaucrat beat the secular Ofer Berkovitch in the run-off. The latter does not accept defeat and speaks of fraud. Lion set an electoral campaign on fear and danger of "secularization". Lieberman resigns as a protest on the truce in Gaza.
Jerusalem (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The candidate of the Jewish religious faction Moshe Lion, supported by ultra-orthodox conservative parties, is the new mayor of Jerusalem. He triumphed in the ballot against the candidate of the "secular" wing, after conducting an election campaign based on fear and on the "danger of secularization" of the holy city.
Lion, 57, defeated in the second round the 35-year-old rival and outgoing vice-mayor Ofer Berkovitch, who does not accept the defeat and launches in these hours heavy accusations of fraud. The new mayor would have won thanks to the support of Shass, an ultra-Orthodox party led by Israeli Interior Minister Arieh Deri.
He won 51.54% of the votes, compared to 48.46% of his challenger. There are still 9 thousand ballots left to be counted before the results are official; however, at present the representative of the religious faction is leading by 6528 votes and a last minute change is unlikely.
The new mayor of Jerusalem is a member of the bureaucracy and, like Ofer Berkovitch, has already held the office of municipal councilor in the most populous city of the country several times in the past. After announcing the (unofficial) victory at the polls, Moshe Lion said he wanted to work to consolidate unity. "I count - he said – on being the mayor of all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, if God wants".
Meanwhile, the Gaza affair continues to hold sway in the country, where the situation seems to have calmed down after the serious violence in recent days. A substantial part of the Israeli public criticizes Prime Minister Netanyahu for accepting the truce, seen as a surrender to Hamas fundamentalists. A choice that has also determined the resignation of the Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman, who accuses the premier of "surrendering to terror".
Lieberman also added that his far-right party Yisrael Beiteinu could soon abandon the ruling coalition. A rift that would probably lead to the fall of the executive and early elections.