‘Decision to pull out was correct’
HINDSIGHT is a wonderful thing, they say. And that well known phrase is all the more relatable for Sinn Féin this morning after their best ever General Election.
Should they have run two candidates in Sligo/ Leitrim though? That was the question posed by many of the commentators after sitting TD Martin Kenny romped home with 25% of first preference votes in the constituency, 8,000 more first preference votes than the next highest.
Councillor Chris MacManus, who ran alongside Kenny in 2016, was selected to run alongside him again ahead of this election. But, at the eleventh hour, MacManus pulled out to ensure that his party held on to their seat in the constituency.
MacManus sees both sides of the argument, but he put his party first and has no regrets about not running in this election. He knows that there will be others - his chance will come around again.
He told The Sligo Champion: “If we look at the result today and if we had vote management, I probably would have brought an increase as a Sligo based candidate. You could have had a situation today where both of us were at 8,000 votes on the first count, coming first and second. The decision I made four or five weeks ago was made in real time with real information. At that stage Sinn Féin were, everyone was saying that we were in a battle to retain the seat we had.
“The decision I made was the right one for the party. I’m not driven by personal ambition, I recognise that other elections will come around. Based on the result that we have got today, if we can maintain that level of support, I’m sure that the party will most definitely look to run two candidates to win two seats. If we had good vote management today we could have been in the driving seat for two seats today. I’m a young-ish age, there will be other elections and I’m quite confident that I will be putting my hat in the ring at a later stage.
As Sinn Féin’s popularity grew in the last two weeks running up to the elections, there were questions over whether or not Sinn Féin made a mistake running only 42 candidates, which would not be enough to see them take a majority into government.
MacManus agrees that there are constituencies where his party should have considered running more than one, and should there be another election this year, he feels that may be looked at.
“When you’re looking at situations around the state like Waterford where David Cullinane is taking nearly two quotas, were you have Dessie Ellis in Dublin North West taking 45% of the vote, there has to be quite a number of constituencies where we should be running two candidates. Our number crunchers will sit down after the election, they’ ll have to take on how we did constituency by constituency and take on board polling on the day. I hope there isn’t another election, I’d like a bit of a breather. The one thing about us in Sinn Féin is that we fight elections on both sides of the border, we’re only after coming out of one in Westminster in December, the Dáil one in February, a little bit of rest would be nice.”
Cllr. MacManus is no stranger to elections. This one, however, felt different. The Sligo town based councillor says he is very proud of how his party fared in this year’s election.
“I’ve been involved in elections for the last 20+ years. This is by far the best election we have ever had. I’m very proud to be an Irish republican, to see us break the stranglehold of the two party system that we’ve now broken through, it’s a three party system now. It’s an excellent result for us locally.
“In Sligo town for a non county Sligo candidate to take nearly a quarter of the vote in Sligo town, to top the poll in Sligo county is a phenomenal result and is one that maybe several weeks ago we would not have expected. We could sense it on the doorsteps over the last number of weeks.
“People want change, it was coming through loud and clear. What Mary Lou, Eoin Ó’Broin and Pearse Doherty were saying in regards to everyday issues, housing, healthcare, having a pound in your pocket, it resonated with people. Especially young people.”
As the campaign went on, MacManus says it became more and more apparent that Kenny’s seat was not only safe, but that he was also in a good position to top the poll.
“We sensed that as the campaign went on that Martin was in a very secure position. Martin is a very easy candidate to have on the doorsteps, he’s very articulate, he’s very driven, he’s well able to communicate with people. We’re still a little surprised with the massive strength of the vote today. I knew in the last couple of days that Martin had a chance of topping the poll but with 19 candidates I wouldn’t really have expected Martin to be romping home, topping the poll and getting elected on the first count. It’s brilliant.”