EDITORIAL: Local and European elections are vitally important for our democracy

The day of reckoning is almost upon us. Over the last number of months, the Mayo public have been relatively slow to engage with the upcoming local and European elections but over the next couple of days, our electorate will have to sit down and decide who deserves their vote on Friday.

It's not an easy task but it is a very important one.

In the European Parliament election 14 MEPs will be chosen to represent Ireland.

Five will represent our constituency of Midlands North-West, with 27 candidates running in the 15-county constituency. Five will represent Ireland South, where 23 candidates are running across the ten counties. Four will represent Dublin, where there are also 23 candidates on the ballot.

Some 373 million people across Europe are eligible to vote and will elect 720 MEPs.

The elections in Europe will be held across four days, starting with the Netherlands on June 6, Ireland on June 7, more states will vote on June 8 and 20 countries in Europe vote on June 9.

As a result, Ireland will not start counting European votes until June 9, but results cannot be announced until voting concludes across Europe at 10pm Irish time.

In the local elections, 949 seats are to be filled in county and city councils in 166 local electoral areas in Ireland. There are 31 local government authorities.

More than 2,100 candidates have been selected or declared for the local elections this year, over 31 percent of whom are women, that is the highest number of women ever to run in local elections.

Here in Mayo, what is believed to be a record field of 73 candidates have put their name on the ballot paper, 13 of whom are women.

Only three of the councillors who were elected back in 2019 are not running this time, with veteran councillors Seamus Weir and John Cribbin retiring after 25 years of service. Michael Smyth vacated his seat during the term of the last council, but Adrian Forkin, who was co-opted into his seat, is running in the Claremorris Electoral Area.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fail again run large teams with a total of 15 and 14 candidates respectively and for the first time, Sinn Fein have candidates in all six electoral areas, with a team of nine candidates in total.

Independents Day?

There are a large number of independents right across the constituency and many of them will be boosted by the results of the Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks poll over the weekend that showed national support for Independents at a whopping 23 percent.

If that transfers into actual votes we could indeed be in for some surprise results when the votes are counted at the TF Royal Theatre on Saturday and Sunday.

The results from that poll at the weekend also showed how tight the race is likely to be in our Midlands-North-West constituency.

Current sitting MEP and Mayo native Maria Walsh was considered to be in big trouble a few weeks back but this poll has her at the very top on 12 percent, a big surprise considering many had her party colleague Nina Carberry as the most likely candidate to win a seat for Fine Gael.

The Sunday Independent poll has a total of eight candidates on 5 percent or over, and all those candidates will still feel they have a fighting chance of taking one of the five seats on offer.

It certainly does seem likely that Independent Luke 'Ming' Flanagan will hold on to his seat, with one also going to a candidate from Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein, with a battle royal to take place for the fifth and final seat.

100 candidates in total are asking for your Mayo vote next Friday so make sure to exercise your democratic right this Friday. You can keep abreast of what is exactly happening at the Count Centre in Castlebar from early on Saturday morning on our website, click the link below: