Wow! it wasn't even close! All those polls last week were sooooo off!

that is why I did not put up any poll numbers. They are always wrong and unreliable

not pleased with the results. Hopefully he will be better than we fear. At least Quimby is out of office.

Soldiers' votes not included.

Abootbull can easily form a coalition without Mafdal. In essence, he can ignore 30% of the population. I hope this doesn't happen. However, as he said during the debate, he already made deals with the other parties for "tikim", and Mafdal is left standing alone at the bus stop while the Abootbull bus has left. When he says "let the citizens win" we'll see if he includes the dati-leumi citizens as well.

Wow, finally some media coverage for Beit Shemesh here.

Very disappointed that Chen didn't make the cut :(

I heard Chen missed it by only 50 votes!!!

These results are from ynet, and are inaccurate. For accurate results (before counting soliders' votes, including two of my kids!), see http://tinyurl.com/636ync .

How sad that so few residents cared enough to vote! I drove to the polls twice and neither time were there any lines.

If Abutbul really got less than 50% of the votes then it looks like Vaknin's running gave us a Hareidi/Shas mayor. Thanks Danny!

true, but you can look at it from his point of view - Lerner running gave the city a haredi mayor

i am so disappointed that chen didnt get a seat!!!

Vaknin's had the job for fifteen (15!) years. You would think he could let someone else have a crack at it rather than hand the city over to Shas and Aguda.

Term limits would be a very good idea. But that isn't implemented at the local level.

Is Labor = Peres? If so then there's a coalition already:

Gimmel(5) + Shas(3) + Balaish(2) + Peres(1) = 10 out of 19

This was the first municipal election I've experienced here. After seeing how high a percent Vaknin still got, and how much advertising Shas poured on Abutbol, and how many biases Lerner had to dispel (Ashkenazi, dati-leumi, dati vs mesorati, Anglo) it's amazing he got as far as he did.

But now I think, why didn't he secure another term as Sgan HaIr under Abutbol and make the vision more of a reality that way? I know hindsight is 20/20, but weren't the vatikim more aware of the cliff they set up to scale?

I hope that the nice relationship that Lerner and Abutbol expressed at the start of campaigning (attending each other's kickoffs etc.) counts for something.

Is this Abutbul any relation to the Abutbul crime family, or is Abutbul like Goldstein for sefardim?

abutbol is like Goldstein or Smith. I have not heard of any connection...

Sorry Chen! I voted for you!!!

poor Chen. they worked so hard all these years and then were abandoned in the end.

Also, had Sheetrit stayed in, would Abutbol have gotten 40%? If not, Lerner would have won the subsequent run-off. Thanks, Natan!

Read this article-the real success story is of Tov-the haredi revolution is just beginning.....



http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1226404704516&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Unfortunately, the haredi revolution is truly necessary-all those kids in the park need the revolution more than anyone else. Hopefully, "eilu veilu divrei elokim chayim" will be put into practice.

There IS more than one type of frum Jew.

My condolences to the good people of Beit Shemesh.

Was Efraim Naiman successful?

unfortunately, his party came up short by something like 46 votes...

rafi, what's it like being neighbors with a sgan rosh ha'ir?

havent seen him since, and so the changeover only takes place in two weeks (I think), so I'll let you know soon...