It’s evdently election time again as posters go up throughout the county RMG53
WITH just under a month to go until polling day, election season has kicked off in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency.
There’s still almost a week to go for potential candidates to declare themselves, with the deadline for nominations looming next Tuesday for the May 5 elections.
However, many of the established party candidates have been already been canvassing for weeks, where health, education, agriculture and infrastructure have been among the main issues they’ve been hearing on the doorsteps.
First Minister Arlene Foster got the ball officially rolling in Omagh last week, handing in her nomination papers on Thursday along with fellow candidate and sitting MLA Maurice Morrow, from Dungannon. Speaking afterwards, she said she was striving to keep the DUP the largest party in the North, but was also looking forward to coming home.
“Obviously as party leader I have a bigger responsibility in respect of all my candidates across the country, but I am very much looking forward to getting out around Fermanagh and South Tyrone,” said First Minister Foster. “It’s home, it’s where I was brought up, it’s where I live and I love it very much.”
With four candidates running for this term, the highest number of candidates the party has run to date, Sinn Fein submitted their papers in Omagh yesterday.
Sean Lynch, John Feely, Michelle Gildernew and Phil Flanagan
With sitting MLA Bronwyn McGahan bowing out, former MP Michelle Gildernew, Cllr John Feely, and sitting MLAs Sean Lynch and Phil Flanagan are all in contention following a controversial selection convention process.
Mr Lynch, seen as an elder statesman of the party, told the Herald that so far the candidates had been getting a “very positive response” on the doorsteps, with recent events such as the 1916 Easter Rising commemorations “definitely resonating with people.”
The UUP were also in Omagh on Thursday, where Erne North Councillor Rosemary Barton and MLA Alastair Patterson, the Castlederg man who was co-opted to the Assembly in January to carry on the previous mandate of local MP Tom Elliott, officially lodged their nomination papers.
Speaking to the Herald afterwards, Cllr Barton said concerns about the health service, such as waiting times and travelling distances, had been by far the biggest issues among voters. She added the “brain drain” and the state of the local agriculture economy also emerging as major concerns.
SDLP candidate, Cllr Richie McPhillips, also said health was the biggest concerns he was picking up on the doorsteps. The Erne East councillor added agriculture and jobs were also big issues, stating Fermanagh was “not getting a fair crack of the whip” and the area was “educating our young people for export.”
With a week still to go before nominations are finalised, other candidates running in the constituency include the TUV’s Donald Crawford and the Green Party’s Tanya Jones.
Mr Crawford, the Lisbellaw farmer who replaced Alex Elliott as the party’s nominee after Mr Elliott’s withdrawal for “personal reasons,” said he too was getting a positive response from people, with issues of victim support and school closures high on constituents’ agenda.
“People are fed up with hokey-cokey, roll-over politics,” he said.
The Green Party’s Ms Jones, who ran in last year’s Westminster elections, also said people were “fed up with the waste of time, money and opportunities that they’ve seen in Stormont” and said the Green’s “common sense compassion” would resonate well with voters.
Also standing a candidate are the Labour Party Northern Ireland with Roslea native Damien Harris and the Alliance Party are throwing their hat into the ring with Bangor woman Kerri Blyberg.
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