SWP local election candidates disappear

national | politics / elections | news report Friday April 23, 2004 20:07 by Website watcher

The SWp initially announced that they would be standing fifteen local election candidates. Now a revised list has appeared on their website. Three of them have disappeared.

The three missing candidates are

Deirdre Cronin (Dundrum)
Kieran McNulty (Tralee)
Dick Roche (Waterford)

McNulty was an odd choice to stand in the first place. As the only active member of the SWP in the area he lacked any kind of support infrastructure. The other two removals from the list are harder to explain.

Roche was widely considered to be one of the few SWP candidates who might get a respectable vote. Cronin was going to do poorly, but probably no worse than most of the twelve remaining. The generously inclined might think that the SWP are making a non-sectarian gesture in standing here aside for a much stronger SP candidate in the same ward. The generously inclined would be wrong - the SWP are still standing a weak candidate against a stronger SP one in the Liberties.

The remaining candidates are just as weak with the exceptions of Richard Boyd Barrett and Brid Smith.

So what's going on? The SWP are now standing only in Dublin or the East coast. (with Gorey representing their furthest outlying candidate). The general weakness of the organisation outside of Dublin is all too plain, with their inability to find a candidate in any of the other major population centres.

The revised list of SWP candidates can be found below:

Brid Smith (Ballyfermot)
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dun Laoghaire)
Catherine Kennedy (Bray West)
Joyce Power (Bray North)
Christy Moore (Ballybrack)
Gino Kenny (Clondalkin)
Terry Connolly (Rathmines)
Kevin Wingfield (Ballymun/Whitehall)
John Carthy (Gorey)
Ritchie Browne (Artane/Coolock)
Shay Ryan (Dublin South East Inner City)
Brendan Donohoe (Dublin South West Inner City)