Following last week’s court decision ordering new elections in Beit Shemesh, MK (Labor) Moshe Mizrachi accuses the Ministry of the Interior of ignoring signs of election fraud before the election.

Mizrachi explains that the Knesset Interior Committee before the elections was presented with worrisome signs but they were ignored. He added the ministry failed to act as it should have, adding that a week after the election Minister of Interior (Likud) Gideon Saar told Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) that even if there was election fraud, it was marginal and it would not impact the election outcome.

Mizrachi explains that the voter eligibility book in Beit Shemesh was the same as during the election held a year earlier for Knesset despite the fact that 4,000 people registered with the ministry as Beit Shemesh residents during that same time period.

Mizrachi points out there were however 900 names of people added as registered voters, people living in apartments in which other families with different last names are also registered. All of these addresses are in chareidi areas, most likely to be supporting Mayor Abutbul and not his rival Eli Cohen. Mizrachi feels the ministry as asleep at the wheel in the case of the city’s elections.

Mizrachi adds that ministry officials insisted the voter registration books were valid and up-to-date when in fact today, everyone realizes this was not the case and thousands of new registered voters should have been added.

Mizrachi feels that in addition to being a police matter the Beit Shemesh elections is also a parliamentary matter that must be addressed.

Ministry officials released a statement that investigating the election is a police matter, not the ministry’s and therefore it has nothing to add.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)