Pensioners' Party stuns everyone but themselves with seven seats

The elderly people having coffee and cake at a cafe in the upscale Ramat Aviv Gimmel neighborhood looked like typical well-off retirees Tuesday morning, but they were political activists for the Pensioners' Party, predicting - correctly, it appears - that they would surprise the country by winning about six Knesset seats.

With nearly all votes counted on Wednesday morning, the Pensioners' Party appears to have secured seven seats in the next Knesset.

"Apparently, we'll be the surprise of the elections," party chairman Rafi Eitan said Tuesday morning. "Never has a group of authentic retirees been organized like the one we have today. I think we radiate sincerity and credibility. In light of the reactions we've received in the streets today, I think we will surprise."

The party platform deals entirely with advancing the rights of the elderly, including ensuring pensions for all citizens and placing medications for the elderly in the health basket of medications and medical treatments subsidized by the state.

Eitan, a former senior official in the Shin Bet security service and Mossad espionage agency, has a brief political history dating back to when he helped Ariel Sharon establish the Shlomzion party in the 1970s.

Eitan moved on to business deals with various countries, including Cuba and the Dominican Republic, "primarily in the realm of agriculture and media." He maintained warm ties with Sharon and his associates. Due to his connections, activists for senior citizen rights asked Eitan to get on the Kadima list to represent their goals. He said he was promised a place, but after Sharon had his stroke, the pensioners found themselves in an unrealistic spot - below No. 50 on the Kadima ticket.

After other parties refused to reserve a spot for the representation of retirees, the activists decided to form their own ticket and asked Eitan to head it. Eitan also became the personal guarantor for bank loans to fund the campaign.

At the Ramat Aviv Gimmel cafe Tuesday morning, the pensioners did not attract the attention of people at nearby tables. The party leaders, their spouses and some volunteers got their leftovers wrapped in doggy bags and moved on to their next Election Day visit: the Mishan nursing home in the Tel Aviv neighborhood of Neot Afka.

The security guard at the well-tended nursing home said the institution was private property and that the pensioners could not come in. Yaakov Ben-Izri, No. 2 on the party list and a former district manager at the Clalit health maintenance organization, gave a political explanation for the guard's refusal: "Mishan still has ties to the Histadrut [labor federation], and the director general of Mishan certainly has ties to the Labor Party."

Later on, a journalist from Channel 2 asked the party members who they were really representing. After all, she said, most elderly people in Israel are not pensioners for the simple reason that they have no pensions. And how can a well-to-do leadership that doesn't leave Ramat Aviv Gimmel pretend to worry about social welfare payments, she wanted to know. But Eitan, with his limited political experience, had no answer.

Finding no retirees with whom to shake hands, the pensioners moved on to Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, where they found a lot of support. "Good for you," shouted a woman from Haifa who decided to spend her Election Day having fun in Tel Aviv. The woman explained later that she had voted for a different party, saying, "I don't know who they'll join, what they're in favor of, aside from the pensioners."

She is not the only one in the dark, as Rafi Eitan makes sure not to respond to questions about the party's stance on political and economic issues. The less they know, the reasoning goes, the better.

But the Pensioners' Party is not just for senior citizens. There is also a youth wing, based around two people in their early 30s, who look like they're fighting for their grandparents. And in the last few days, after it became clear that many young people were planning to put an empty ballot slip in the envelope, the party decided on a new PR line: "Instead of putting in a white slip, vote for the pensioners."

	Members of the Pensioners' Party celebrating early on Wednesday in Tel Aviv. (Alon Ron)