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Viewing cable 06TELAVIV1197, BIG PARTIES SPEND BIG BUCKS ON BIG DAY

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Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
06TELAVIV1197 2006-03-27 17:35 2011-08-24 01:00 UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Embassy Tel Aviv
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 TEL AVIV 001197 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR NEA/IPA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV KDEM IS PINR GOI INTERNAL ELECTIONS
SUBJECT: BIG PARTIES SPEND BIG BUCKS ON BIG DAY 
(C-NE6-00442) 
 
1.  (SBU) SUMMARY:  While Kadima and Likud have budgets for 
election day at least 50 percent larger than that of the 
Labor Party, Labor will draw on an extensive and experienced 
organizational network at the local level.  Kadima party 
organizers say they must work particularly hard to get out 
the vote, since centrist voters tend to stay at home on 
election day more often than do voters on either end of the 
political spectrum.  While Kadima organizers admit that they 
lack enough high quality local leaders to operate the number 
of local party branches they would like to have, they claim 
that their get-out-the-vote effort will benefit from the 
recent conversion of almost half of Israel's 256 mayors to 
Kadima.  Likud, by contrast, has lost a significant number of 
its local leaders to Kadima, and appears to have suffered 
from a drop in the number of local election volunteers.  END 
SUMMARY. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
PARTIES APPLY SIMILAR STRATEGY: MONITOR AND CALL 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
2.  (SBU) Leaders of the get-out-the-vote campaigns in Labor, 
Likud and Kadima have all articulated similar basic 
strategies: prevent fraud by placing official party observers 
in the country's 8,200 polling stations; organize local 
activities by establishing party branches in many of Israel's 
256 municipalities; contact voters by phone in areas where 
monitors report low turnouts at the polling stations; divert 
fewer resources than in the past to transporting voters to 
the polls; and spend more money than in the past on phone 
calls to voters. 
 
------------------------------------ 
LABOR: SMALL BUDGET, MANY VOLUNTEERS 
------------------------------------ 
 
3.  (SBU) The Labor Party's national get-out-the-vote 
chairman, Arieh Ami, told poloff March 23 that the Labor 
Party will call on 40,000 volunteers to monitor polling 
stations, call voters at home, and transport voters to the 
polls.  He described his volunteers as "very experienced" and 
said that at least 5,000, whom he termed a "huge help" and 
"very important," are associated with the Histadrut Labor 
Federation.  Amis said that the Labor Party has spread its 
resources across 110 Jewish and 100 Arab cities and towns, 
more, he claimed, than either of the other major parties. 
Labor will spend, Ami said, some USD 1.5 million on election 
day, which he described as less than the party used in the 
last elections.  Labor believes it has developed an 
advantage, Ami said, by drawing on its volunteers to research 
old membership lists dating back 15 years.  Although Labor 
currently has only about 100,000 members, Ami reported, the 
party has located through research an additional 600,000 
former members.  Ami said that Labor volunteers would call 
all of these people before or during election day in order to 
persuade them to "return home" to the party. 
 
--------------------------------------- 
KADIMA: BIG BUDGET, PATCHY ORGANIZATION 
--------------------------------------- 
 
4.  (SBU) Yahanon Plesner, number 34 on the Kadima list and 
co-director of the party's operational branch, told poloff 
March 26 that Kadima had so far recruited over 16,000 
volunteers to help get out the vote, and added that he 
expected "thousands more" to volunteer by election day.  The 
party will spend, Plesner said, approximately USD 2.6 million 
on election day, or about one third of the party's entire 
campaign budget.  Plesner said that Kadima has fewer local 
branches than do the other parties, with 80 branches in urban 
areas and 40 in smaller towns.  Plesner also acknowledged 
that Kadima faces a special organizational challenge "because 
we didn't exist three months ago."  Accordingly, local 
leaders must draw on general voter lists from the Ministry of 
the Interior instead of the party membership lists upon which 
Labor and Likud can rely.  Plesner claimed, however, that the 
party's Internet membership drive has already recruited over 
15,000 dues-paying members, and that some 30,000 more have 
signed up at the local level as members, but have not yet 
officially registered and paid.  Ishai Peretz, Kadima's 
get-out-the-vote organizer for northern cities, told poloff 
that Kadima also faces "huge disparities" in the quality of 
its local branch management.  With a lack of national 
structures and institutions, Peretz admitted, Kadima relies 
more on the quality of local leaders.  Peretz added that 
Kadima needs to succeed more than the other parties in 
getting out the vote, since the profile of typical Kadima 
voters is "sober and rational, less exuberant and 
ideological," and hence more "tempted to sit at home" than 
the "hard core idealists." 
 
5.  (SBU) Kadima's strength, however, will derive from 
"recent converts" at the local level, according to Plesner. 
There are many such converts, according to Beersheva Mayor 
Yaakov Terner and Deputy Mayor Sima Navon.  Terner told 
poloff March 23 that he left Labor to join Kadima in January; 
Navon said she left Likud at the same time to join Kadima. 
They also reported that 110 out of Israel's 256 mayors 
expressed their allegiance to Kadima at a national mayor's 
conference held two weeks ago.  Navon added that 10 more 
Kadima mayors did not attend the conference, while many 
others sympathize with Kadima but have not yet announced 
their new party membership. 
 
----------------------------------- 
LIKUD: BIG BUDGET, FEWER VOLUNTEERS 
----------------------------------- 
 
6.  (SBU) The Labor Party's Arieh Ami claimed that local 
defections to Kadima have hurt Likud more than they have hurt 
Labor.  "Likud is facing major problems because they have 
lost branch offices," Ami said.  "Their organization has 
collapsed."  Likud's director of operations, Asaf Itzhaki, 
refuted this claim while explaining to poloff March 27 that 
the party has "thousands" of volunteers.  He declined, 
however, to specify how many volunteers, suggesting the 
number might be fewer than 10,000.  He told poloff that the 
party will spend some USD 2.2 million -- one third of the 
total campaign budget -- to get out the vote on election day. 
To ensure that they reach former Likud voters, Itzhaki 
explained, Likud volunteers will draw on the Ministry of 
Interior's general voter list to supplement the Likud 
membership list. 
 
********************************************* ******************** 
Visit Embassy Tel Aviv's Classified Website: 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/telaviv 
 
You can also access this site through the State Department's 
Classified SIPRNET website. 
********************************************* ******************** 
JONES