Virtual status quo in Laois after General Election where Brian ...

2 days ago

Leinster Express

A big field of candidates in a new constituency guaranteed a competitive and healthy democratic General Election campaign in the new Laois constituency but this was not reflected in the outcome.

Brian stanley - Figure 1 — Photo Leinster Express

Many had predicted when the election was called that, barring a major shock in the final days of the campaign, the only change to the Laois Dáil landscape would be the arrival of Willie Aird on the scene for Fine Gael in place of Charlie Flanagan.

Even that did not represent a radical shake-up as Cllr Aird has been in local politics for 45 years as County and Town Councillor for Portlaoise elected first at the age of 19 in 1979. This ensured he was no stranger to voters in every corner of Laois.

When the political history of this campaign comes to be written, Laois will feature not because of the outcome or Mr Aird's historic achievement but because of Brian Stanley and the controversial saga that surrounded his candidacy and subsequent campaign.

Mr Stanley has made mistakes this year but he is still a clever politician and master election campaigner with bucketloads of successful experience who turned all of this and in his favour to seal a likely triumph. He was also wiley enough to use the split from Sinn Féin and the publicity garnered as an added weapon to his electoral artillery to fire up his canvassers and voters. MORE BELOW PICTURE.

A new system of counting votes by local election area in Laois simultaneously ensured that the cross-party tally system would yield good insight into where the votes were going from early on Saturday morning after the Director of Elections Rory Hanniffy directed the ballot boxes be opened.

Three names were constantly to be heard from all the tally teams and in a fairly consistent order covering the electoral areas. Aird, Fleming Stanley were the clear frontrunners from the off.

A box tallied early in from Scoil Bhride in Portlaoise showed Mr Aird taking just under a third of votes cast out of 314 tallied in the box. Brian Stanley picked up 77 votes in the same box while Sean Fleming registered 48. The only challenger to the big three was Sinn Féin's Maria McCormack who polled 33 votes.

Brian stanley - Figure 2 — Photo Leinster Express

Another box from the Knoockmay centre showed Mr Aird taking nearly half of the 400 odd votes cast. Outgoing TDs Stanley and Fleming alongside Ms McCormack were again the only other candidates to impact.

The significance of these boxes for all candidates outside Mr Aird and the two incumbent TDs was that their campaigns would have had to register significantly with Portlaoise voters to be in with a chance. These boxes showed they failed to do so. MORE BELOW PICTURE.

Unfortunately for Ms McCormack, while a big campaign persuaded many Portlaoise voters to back her, she was up against the most successful ever sitting Portlaoise councillor, a Portlaosie-based TD and Sean Fleming who has always managed to draw votes from the Laois County Town despite being based in Castletown.

The final cross-party tally results were very accurate in predicting the outcome. All but two boxes were tallied. It revealed that a quarter of first preference votes went to Mr Aird and Fine Gael. Mr Fleming came in second with just over 21% of the vote for Fianna Fáil. Brian Stanley took nearly 18% of number one votes. Trailing well back in fourth was Sinn Féin and McCormack with over 12% of votes.

The iota of hope for Sinn Féin and the other candidates were all but extinguished once the Returning Officer Rory Hanniffy revealed the results of the first count on Sunday at around 6pm.

Mr Aird topped the poll with an unassailable lead of 9,269 - just a couple of hundred votes off the quota. Seán Fleming checked in with 8,123 which also put him on the home straight. Trailing in third was Brian Stanley with 6,782.

While Mr Stanley's first preference performance was some way off his 2020 poll-topping achievement, he was clearly delighted with how much he was transfer-friendly in this election something he wouldn't have enjoyed in his Sinn Féin days.

He picked up 2,730 votes in transfers between the first and eighth counts. He enjoyed a final big transfer of 1,342 votes from former Fine Gael councillor turned independent Aisling Moran pushed him over the line and within 58 votes of the 9,570 quota.

Outgoing partners in Government Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will be delighted that they secured nearly half of all Laois first preference votes. As with other constituencies with high-profile independents, the percentage of votes for non-party candidates Laois was very high at about a third of the first preference total.

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