Politics is local for majority

Politics is local for majority

Influences
Denise Horan

A MASSIVE 56 per cent of Mayo voters will base their first preference voting decision mainly on local concerns and issues, according to The Mayo News/Millward Brown IMS Mayo constituency opinion poll.
Eighteen per cent of respondents said that their first preference vote would be influenced mainly by national concerns, while 26 per cent said their vote would be influenced equally by national and local issues and concerns. One per cent of those polled did not know what would influence their voting or had no opinion.
The pattern was similar for voters of all party colours. Fifty-seven per cent of both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael voters polled said that local issues would mainly influence their voting, while the percentages for Sinn Féin and Independent voters were 60 and 49, respectively. Twenty-eight per cent of Independent respondents said that national issues would be of greatest concern to them on polling day, while national issues will mainly influence the voting patterns of 18 per cent of Fianna Fáil voters, 13 per cent of the Fine Gael faithful and 12 per cent of Sinn Féin supporters.
At a time when many national issues, such as health, crime and education, are in the spotlight, this poll would appear to indicate that party policies on these matters do not feature as highly on the lists of priorities of the majority of voters as issues that directly affect their lives at local level. It may, therefore, be assumed, that what the election candidates need to do in the coming weeks is convince voters of what their election to Dáil Éireann could do to improve their lives or the welfare of their communities.
This poll may go some towards explaining why Michael Ring was so overwhelming chosen as the Mayo TD who has performed best for the county since the last election. Ring is noted as a strong and dedicated constituency worker, who attends to the concerns of individual constituents with great diligence. If this logic were to be followed through to its end, however, one would tend to fear for Enda Kenny, whose position as leader of the main opposition party has precluded him from being the keen constituency worker that he might otherwise have been since 2002. Yet Kenny’s 19 per cent share of the first preference vote in our election poll would appear to contradict this, indicating that his important national profile – and the potential for even greater importance – is accepted as a valid reason for not giving Mayo and its issues his exclusive attention.
The apparent focus on local issues among voters may also bode well for the Ballina candidates. If the lack of a TD for the past five years has been keenly enough felt by the people there, and is sharply enough reflected in local issues, then Dara Calleary and Michelle Mulherin may be the ones to gain.
Of course, more than one in four voters has an equal interest in both local and national issues, which means that choice of government may be of greatest importance to them. This sizeable portion of the Mayo electorate may feel that Independent and Sinn Féin candidates have little to offer in this department, regardless of the outcome of the election, and may therefore opt to deposit their franchise elsewhere.