Ex-Israeli Consul-General to New York Asaf Zamir, who was dismissed from his position in March, announced on Monday that he is returning to the municipal arena and will be making a joint run for the Tel Aviv mayoral race with incumbent mayor Ron Huldai.

According to a Channel 12 News report earlier this month, the 79-year-old Huldai, who has served as the mayor of Tel Aviv for 25 years, offered Zamir a deal in which they would run together, with Huldai serving as mayor and Zamir as deputy mayor. Huldai committed to retire from the position of mayor in 2027, at the start of the fifth year of the term, and transfer it to Zamir. According to law, if the mayor retires in the last year of the term, there are no general elections and the city council chooses a replacement. According to the report, Zamir told his associates about the deal, saying that it was a joint attempt to beat his main rival in the race, Orna Barbivai.

Barbivai, a former member of the Yesh Atid party who served as the Economy Minister in the Bennett-Lapid government, announced her candidacy for the Tel Aviv mayoral race in June. She slammed Zamir’s announcement and the reports of his deal with Huldai by stating that “they joined together to create some sort of monarchical rule as if it was a private business – to transfer the city from one to another…This rotten deal is the most illiberal, the most undemocratic, a kind of artificial soul for a term that is far beyond what it should be…I suggest that they reveal this dark deal because the public should know about it.”

Zamir served as Deputy Mayor of Tel Aviv from 2008 until 2013 and Acting Mayor in charge of education from 2013 to 2018. In 2018, Zamir unsuccessfully challenged Huldai for leadership of the city. He subsequently joined the Knesset as part of the Blue and White party but resigned from the Knesset in 2020. In 2021, he was appointed Consul-General in New York by then-Foreign Minister Yair Lapid under the Lapid-Bennett government.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)