The nomination process closed for the upcoming general election yesterday at noon and there are 16 people putting themselves forward looking for your number one vote on Friday, February 26 when you go to the polling station. In total there are nine political party candidates, three Fine Gael, two Fianna Fail and one each from Sinn Fein, Renua, Anti-Austerity Alliance/People Before Profit and the Green Party along with seven independent candidates on the ballot paper.
The last three to put forward their nominations were the three sitting Fine Gael TDs, An Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Minister of State Michael Ring and Dep Michelle Mulherin who submitted their papers among a media scrum shortly after 9am yesterday morning.
Five of the nominees have been successful before in a general election, the Fine Gael trio, Fianna Fáil’s current TD in the county Dara Calleary and independent candidate Jerry Cowley who was a TD from 2002 to 2007, but he has been has not been able to win back that seat in either of the last two general elections. Both Fianna Fáil’s Cllr Lisa Chambers and Sinn Fein’s Cllr Rose Conway Walsh contested the 2011 general election and got good returns that they will expect to see improve dramatically this time around. This would leave them in contention for the last seat alongside the incumbent Michelle Mulherin TD.
There were a number of additions to the declared list of candidates this week with Stephen Manning, Sean Forkan, and Kamal Uddin all being added to the list of nominees before the deadline.
The declared list of candidates is: Enda Kenny TD, Michelle Mulherin TD, Michael Ring TD, Dara Calleary TD, Cllr Lisa Chambers, Cllr Rose Conway-Walsh, Dr Jerry Cowley, George O’Malley, Peter Jordan, Stephen Manning, Sean Forkan, Tom Moran, Gerry O’Boyle, Mags Sheehan, Kamal Uddin, and Michael Farrington.
The nominees have up until midday today, Friday, February 12 to withdraw their nomination and the election count will take place in the Royal Theatre, Castlebar on Saturday, February 27. The Mayo count and the South Mayo/Galway West count will be covered extensively on www.advertiser.ie/mayo and on all our social media platforms.
