After three months during which the Jerusalem Municipality
was paralyzed due to the failure of Mayor Olmert to form a
coalition, the members of its council agreed to form a
coalition which will direct the city.
The coalition will have 22 members, who together will be a
clear majority of the 31 member council, and represent the
views of all of the city's residents. The coalition will be
made up of members of the following parties: United Torah
Jewry, Shas, Mafdal, Le'Maan Kehillos Yerushalayim, Ani
Yerushalmi, Yachad, along with the mayor's faction;
Yerushalayim Hamelukedet; and Yossi Telgo's faction.
Mayor Olmert had tried to form an even broader coalition that
would have included even virulently anti-religious members
such as Arnon Yekutieli. The chareidi councilmen refused to
sit together with Yekutieli until and unless he stops his
fanatic attacks on religious Jewry.
The entire coalition expressed its fear that Arnon
Yekutieli's inclusion in the coalition would from the start
doom all possibility of teamwork. Rabbi Uri Lapolianski, the
head of UTJ in the Yerushalayim Municipality, said that the
experience of the past five years showed that without
Yekutieli it is possible to make impressive achievements on
behalf of the city and its development, while working
together, in a manner in which all are concerned for the
entire city and all of its residents. "We prefer this
coalition, without factors who speak about dividing
Jerusalem, and who spread hatred and incitement," he summed
up.
At the meeting held on Monday, attended by the majority of
the factions in the municipality, the spokesmen claimed that
the business of the city must move ahead. The representatives
asked the mayor, Ehud Olmert, to present the broad coalition
at the forthcoming meeting.
It should be noted that the allocation of jobs was determined
by mutual agreement between all components of this coalition,
and thus the undignified discussions which accompanied the
process of former other coalitions was prevented.
