By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Keysborough South Ward candidate Stephen Fanous has been seemingly snubbed by his fellow ALP member candidates.
Mr Fanous says he has been denied preferences from the three ALP candidates ahead of this month’s Greater Dandenong Council election, despite him being confirmed as an ALP member in late September.
He says he applied for membership in March.
Under party rules, Labor-member candidates are required to exchange their earliest preferences.
However due to being a member for less than 12 months, Mr Fanous has been told he must preference other ALP members first but not expect reciprocal preferences back.
“I’m a little disappointed that the other Labor members haven’t kept an open dialogue.
“As fellow Labor members, they should at least be open to a conversation regarding preferences.”
Ramy El-Sukkari, an ALP member candidate and one of the election front-runners, said he would not – and was not obliged to – preference Mr Fanous early.
“My values are apart from Stephen Fanous. He won’t be getting any favours.”
The other ALP member candidates are Jessica Halliday and Gam Le.
Mr Fanous has however gained top preferences from candidates My Dung Phung, Thineng Meng and Vivekkumar Desai – none of whom returned a Star Journal candidate survey.
Their preferences are in official candidate statements, which will be mailed out to voters from 6 October.
Mr Fanous denied the three were ‘running mates’. Their preferences were secured during an “open dialogue” with all candidates, he said.
“We’ve reached out to everybody to discuss preferences”.
He denied a claim by Greens candidate Rhonda Garad that he offered to pay for her how-to-vote cards in exchange for preferences.
“In discussing preferences with me, Stephen offered to print and distribute my how-to-vote cards, which I didn’t think was appropriate,” Ms Garad said.
Mr Fanous denied the claim, saying Ms Garad possibly “misunderstood” his offer of advice.
He said Ms Garad had told him she couldn’t afford how-to-vote cards, so he’d advised her that “investing in a how-to-vote card is the best thing she can do”.
Mr Fanous, Ms Phung, Mr Meng and Mr Desai are also given highest preferences from candidate Jeruisha Williams.
Ms Williams, who has returned a Star Journal survey, said the preference deal was to her benefit.
“I guess Ramy (El-Sukkari), Rhonda (Garad) and Jessica (Halliday) are preferencing each other.
“So I worked out with my team what was to my benefit.”
