With elections less than five months away, suggestions that Tel Aviv may elect its first openly gay mayor have started to surface. Reporting from 972Mag.com, journalist Noam Sheizaf is reporting that second-term Member of Knesset (Israeli Parliament) and former journalist for Channel 10 News Nitzan Horowitz has launched a serious bid to challenge the current occupant Ron Huldai. Huldai, who has served as the city’s mayor since 1998 is currently expected to win but there are issues that could make a Horowitz within the scope of possibility.
“Horowitz’s challenge will be in the south, where locals are frustrated by what they see as the city’s indifference to pressures the asylum seekers’ presence has put on the municipal infrastructure and the local population. I don’t think that Horowitz can win those votes, but if the south doesn’t break in Huldai’s favor, the elections could be closer than people think,” reports Sheizaf.
In 2008, Huldai faced a challenge from candidate Dov Khenin of the Hadash party who mounted a strong grassroots campaign and walked away with 33% of the vote. But Horowitz is far more mainstream – the Hadash party, which formed in 1977, has its roots in the Jewish communist community – and is expected to run a very different campaign. Moreover, there are no assurances that the same people who voted for Khenin in 2008 would break for Horowitz.
What will be interesting, observes Sheizaf, is how the LGBT community responds to Horowitz’s candidacy. “It will also be interesting to see who receives the support of the Tel Aviv gay community’s leaders, who in the past have been Huldai’s political allies.”
Tel Aviv is one of the most liberal cities in the Middle East and a popular vacation destination for many of the world’s gay travelers so the prospect of having an openly gay mayor is a non-issue. But what may aid Horowitz is a decision by Khenin to pursue larger political ambitions which would all but guarantee a Horowitz victory.
As of now, however, Khenin has given all indications that he plans to lead Tel Aviv well into the new decade.
