‘There’s noting to stop people from running’
After being eliminated early on Monday afternoon, Independent candidate James Conway was in a positive mood at his performance in his first election.
The Ballinacarrow man polled 1,354 first preferences and survived longer than former junior minister John Perry.
“I’m delighted, and I want to take the time to thank the people that took the time to go to the polling stations to give us a vote,” he told the Sligo Champion.
“We’ve some big scalps there so it’s wonderful, I’m absolutely delighted, you have to remember three weeks, no kind of profile, limited resources, limited money and I think we did very well so I want to thank everyone that helped and everyone that voted for us from the bottom of my heart, it means an awful lot.”
Not only did Conway contest the election, but the 26-year-old is also making a documentary which will detail his campaign and highlight issues in rural Ireland.
“The goal [of this campaign] was to do our very best and we’re making a documentary on rural issues and a perceived decimation of rural services,” he said.
“The main aim was to use the election as a platform to raise the issues to the bigger parties and to talk sense and try and get a common-sense approach back in government and that the people would see for again as a serious candidate.
“It’s very difficult to go from 0 to 60 in the one election but if I said if we had a good performance here it’d open people’s eyes and they’d say, well there’s someone for the future so I think we performed very well, I’m very happy.
Stating that he intends to run again in future elections – either national or local – Conway encouraged those passionate about certain issues to put themselves in front of the people.
“One of the main things I wanted to highlight and I’ve highlighted it in the documentary is that there is nothing stopping anyone from getting involved in politics.
“There is nothing stopping people from running in an election, if you see a perceived problem, run, don’t just give out about it, its thirty signatures or 500 euro run for it and use your platform then to highlight that issue.”