Change is coming to Bet Shemesh

I have heard a number of times from various people that they are just going to support the current mayor in the upcoming elections because he is not so bad, he is definitely better than the guy before him, and change isn't good.

Well, change is coming, whether you like it or not. Very few people from the current city council will be carrying over to the new city council.

MK Aryeh Deri (Shas) has put together a team within Shas to evaluate its city council-people, and mayors, all around the country, and shake up things up, bring in some fresh blood. While Deri has already announced that Abutbol is their guy for another term as mayor of Bet Shemesh, his team just announced that they are canning the other representatives and will be replacing them with new city councilmen. An unnamed senior official of Shas was actually quoted as having said that the only reason they are keeping support for Abutbol is because he is their only guy who can win the mayorship for them - if they had somebody else they would replace him too! Not a very great show of confidence in their own mayor - they are running him only on electability, not at all on capability. Abubtol too might be replaced, if the candidate from the general population defeats him. The numbers are in Abutbol's favor, but it is far from a slam dunk.

So, Shas has 3 curent city councilmen, including the mayor, and 2 of them will be replaced. Reuven Cohen and Yigal Hadad are out.

I have not yet heard of any major changes in UTJ, so I expect them to be the same representatives. There are some rumors of a change, but even if there is some change, they will remain mostly the same. Maybe 1 rep will be changed.

Eli Friedman of TOV just announced he is stepping down and will not run for the top slot  again. TOV will be holding internal elections, aka primaries, to select their new local leader.

The Likud list has been completely revamped.

Habayit HaYehudi is being completely revamped, though I think one of their candidates will remain (Jackie Edri).

Eli Cohen's party, Bet Shemesh Chozeret, will bring all new councilpeople to the moatza, except for spot #3 held by Shalom Lerner.

Meir Balaish will be the same 1 (assuming he gets in). I do not know what Motti Cohen will be doing - I assume he will be running his own party, and I imagine he will win a seat and remain. Richard Peres of Labor  will remain if he can scrape up enough votes to get in..

I do not know the status of the Russian party with 1 rep. From what I have read, she will most likely be replaced.

Basically, at least 65% of the current members of the city council will not be in the next city council. Change is coming to Bet Shemesh. Like it or not.

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