Pomp and circumstances are generally hard to find in Israeli elections, but the ritual submission of party lists to the Central Elections Committee provided plenty, along with a glimpse at some of the more colorful parties running.
The process began Tuesday night, with parties rushing to stake a place on line.

Twelve were registered to give in their lists, but only nine did on Wednesday: The Zionist Union, Green Leaf, Democratura, Pirates, We Are All Friends Na Nach, Or, Yisrael Beytenu, the Joint Arab List, and Ubezchutan.

Labor Party secretary-general Hilik Bar was first to enter the Central Elections Committee’s headquarters, a conference room in the Knesset. He sat in front of the panel’s chairman, Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran, and its director-general, Orly Ades, along with Knesset House Committee chairman Yariv Levin (Likud), MK Alex Miller (Yisrael Beytenu), and Shas representative Yehuda Avidan, who made snarky comments at nearly every party.

“We are honored to be first,” Bar said, Army Radio reported. “Throughout this election process, we were the most organized and transparent.”

“No campaigning!” Joubran warned.

“I’m glad you internalized the idea of transparent people,” Avidan said, referring to Shas’s campaign, which says the poor are ignored by the government.

Bar pointed out that the Zionist Union list starts with Isaac Herzog and ends with Isaac Navon, and asked for the letters spelling out the Hebrew word for truth (emet) to appear on its voting slips, as is traditional in Labor.

Then, referring to Wednesday’s Likud vote recount, Bar said to Levin: “Good luck. I hope you’ll be able to give in your list by 10 p.m. tomorrow. You’ve been counting votes for a month.” Continue reading