Mayor of Bet Shemesh Moshe Abutbol has opened a campaign headquarters to target the Dati Leumi community. Abutbol, with the support of Shas, and presumably of UTJ, is now canvassing for Religious Zionist votes, according to INN.

The head of the campaign headquarters is Motti Ovadia, A PR guy who worked with MKs from HaBayit HaYehudi.

Abutbol has recently met with the heads of the local Habayit Hayehudi party and with other party representatives in an attempt to plan future cooperation and try to get their support in the upcoming elections.

Ovadia said that Abutbol is reaching out to the Dati Leumi community and hopes that this time they will be full partners, from the beginning, in his work for the good of Bet Shemesh residents and specifically to fulfill the needs of the Dati Leumi community regarding issues such as housing, education, welfare and youth issues.

Abutbol wants to leave previous strife between him and the Dati community in the past and not let the atmosphere around the country (of hostility between the communities) affect the local elections and cause strife between the various sectors in the city..

Especially interesting is his attempt to speak to leaders of the Bayit Yehudi party to try to get their support for his reelection campaign. Does he not realize they are currently fielding their own candidate? Does he expect them to turn their backs on their own candidate? If Bloch should not come out in front of the sekker to be conducted in early August, HaBayit HaYehudi is already committed to supporting whichever candidate does come in first (right now the only other candidate is Eli Cohen), so I do not get what he is trying to do.

I could understand trying to attract individual voters. There are always some people who will like any specific candidate - surely some like his work and efforts, others might have been helped by him, others might not like the alternatives - even against the party lines... but to try to get the party leaders when they have fielded their own candidate? That is strange. My only thought is that he is preparing for after the sekker if Bloch should lose, and is hoping he can get them to break their commitment -instead of backing Eli Cohen he is hoping to get them to back him.

I should add that Aliza Bloch posted a response to this news item on her Facebook page. She wrote "The announcement publicized in Arutz Sheva today saying that Mayor Moshe Abutbol is working out a deal with the Habayit Hayehudi party, is spin that has no connection to the truth. There is no connection between the presiding mayor and Aliza Bloch, the candidate of Habayit Hayehudi. Abutbol understands that Aliza Bloch is the one who will replace him as mayor in less than 3 months from now, so he is under pressure and is trying to publicize things that never happened in an attempt to make the Habayit Hayehudi candidate look bad. Aliza Bloch has unprecedented support from all parts of the city and she will bring abut the great change."

Whether she will be the mayoral candidate and eventual mayor, remains to be seen. She is denying having met with him to work out a deal.

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