Although the double envelopes in Tuesday’s municipal elections haven’t been fully counted yet as of Wednesday, the interim results allowed many wins to be called by midday.

In Jerusalem, incumbent mayor Moshe Lion won in a landslide with 81.5% of the vote over Yossi Havilio, the left-wing candidate who ran on an anti-Chareidi and anti-religious platform. Additionally, a major change took place on the city council, with Chareidi and Religious Zionist candidates slated to win an unprecedented number of seats on the city council. Chareidi candidates will likely win 17 out of 31 seats on the council and Religious-Zionist candidates are poised to win two or three seats – meaning that 19 or 20 of the 31 members of the council will be religious and right-wing.

In Bet Shemesh, a second round will be taking place as none of the candidates received 40% of the votes. UTJ candidate Shmuel Greenberg received 35.7% of the votes and incumbent mayor Aliza Bloch is currently narrowly leading Shas candidate Moshe Abutbul, with Bloch receiving 32.4% of the votes and Abutbul – 31.9%. If Bloch still leads after the double envelopes are counted, she will face Greenberg in a second round on March 10th.

In Bnei Brak, as expected, Agudas Yisrael candidate Chanoch Zeibart, who previously served as mayor from 2013-2018, received 59% of the vote, easily defeating the Shas candidate, Health Minister Uriel Busso, who received 36.6%.

There were also no surprises in Beitar Illit, with incumbent Mayor Meir Rubinstein receiving 66.1% of the vote, defeating the Shas candidate Chananel Shem-Tov. But a major surprise took place in the Chareidi city of Elad, where Shas candidate Yehuda Butbul won 55.3% of the vote, defeating incumbent mayor Yisrael Porush, the son of UTJ Minister Meir Porush, who has served as mayor for the past decade.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid suffered a major loss in Tel Aviv, where Yesh Atid candidate Orna Barbivai lost to incumbent mayor Ron Huldai, who received 50.65% of the vote, winning his sixth consecutive term.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem).