Sligo Labour candidate withdraws in McGarry protest

sligo | politics / elections | news report

Wednesday February 25, 2004 15:45

by rayo

A LABOUR party candidate in the local elections has sensationally withdrawn his name from the ticket and said he may stand as an independent.

Martin Cadden had been selected as a candidate for the party in the Sligo Strandhill electoral area for Sligo County Council and in the West Ward for the Sligo Borough Council election.
But at a selection convention last Saturday night Mr Cadden announced that he was withdrawing his name in protest at the insistence by party headquarters that three candidates should run in the Sligo Strandhill area instead of the expected two.
Mr Cadden said that the decision to field three candidates had been made to allow Alderman Jim Garry (who left Fine Gael to join the Labour party) to stand in the area.
Mr Cadden was critical of the admission of Cllr McGarry into the Labour party.
“Cllr McGarry has down the years been totally and utterly opposed to everything that the Labour party stood for. The Labour party has been opposed to service charges but Cllr McGarry had supported and proposed these charges.
“I was totally disillusioned. I felt that I couldn’t be a part of any ticket that he was on”, he said.
However, McGarry has rejected Mr Cadden’s claims that the party headquarters had changed the rules to allow his name to go forward.

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Comments (3 of 3)

I'd sooner have Cadden than a right-wing blueshirt

by john

Mon Mar 01, 2004 13:30

It seems that many in the LP a content on moving to the centre and filling the gap being left by FG. In Sligo this is clear by the ease in which mr. mcgarry joined the party. Only a few months ago he voted for privatisation of service charges in teh town, he also was one of only 4 councillors to vote in favour of the LP motion condenming the war in Iraq. He was a member of a right wing conservative party for over 20 years.

Who Cares

by Sam - myown

Sun Feb 29, 2004 02:45

When was Mr. Cadden selected as a candidate from what was in the local paper it was at a selection convention that he withdrew his name. So how can it be said that he was a Labour Party candidate ?.
At a selection convention nominations that have been submitted are read out and are declared valid or invalid, if there are more nominations than the number of candidates that has been decided by the party to run in the area, then there is a vote. It is the result of this vote which decides who will run.
Now could it be that Mr. Cadden knew before any such vote was taken that he may not have had enough No. 1 to get through the selection process to BECOME a candidate. Could this be the real truth of the situation? Why come out with a load of trash to the media could this a cover up for what was really happening.
There doesn’t seam to be much interest in the plight of Mr. Cadden judging by the number of comments on this page. In Sligo people know that he is not long departed from Sein Fein himself after years of membership and therefore not really in a position to comment on anyone’s political choices or decisions over the years!. He should come clean on his political history now before he goes looking for vote what ever way he wants to “go forward”

Why dosnt Bree run as an independant

by nua

Thu Feb 26, 2004 13:42

Why dosnt Cllr. Declan Bree follow his principled collegue and resign from the party and run as an independant.

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Sligo Labour candidate withdraws in McGarry protest

Comments (3 of 3)