Protest In Beit Shemesh Claims Fraudulent Election

Thousands of people demonstrated in Beit Shemesh on Thursday, October 24 2013. claiming Tuesday’s mayoral election - won by the ultra-Orthodox-backed incumbent by 900 votes over a secular challenger supported by most non-Haredi factions - was rigged. Protesters supporting Eli Cohen, who lost to Mayor Moshe Abutbul, said the election was fraught with forgery cases and violence. Cohen is considering appealing against the results.

Cohen lost to Abutbul by fewer than a thousand votes in an election that some have described as less a political conflict than a religious war. A line of hundreds of cars filled with Cohen supporters stretching for blocks wound its way around Beit Shemesh on Thursday evening, on its way to a rally in front of the municipality. When it passed through the Ramat Beit Shemesh Alef neighborhood, haredim try to stop traffic, and hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews lined the road, held back by the police.