MY heartfelt thanks go out to all my dearest family – especially my octogenarian mum who despite her age handed out and manned polling booths for me – and to my dear friends, well-wishers and everyone who prayed, encouraged, and supported me every which way they could during my recent council election campaign, and importantly to all you residents who supported me with your vote.
With no running mate and limited resources but with the mountain of support, we did very well and came close to winning.
No Red Gum Ward candidate won on first preferences. The counting went down to the 18th preferential distribution.
Jim Memeti was elected on the sixth distribution with the combined exclusion of Murugan Nagarajan followed by Wicki Wickiramasingham and John Gulzari. On receiving a total of 307 votes from the above exclusions he had the necessary quota of 3372 to be the first declared winner.
Counting then proceeded from the seventh distribution to the 17th preferential distribution following the exclusions of Ashton Ashokkumar, Trang Tran, Dalibor Saula, and finally me the last exclusion after obtaining a total of 2098 votes.
In the vote distribution that then followed Matthew Kirwan obtained a total of 1696 votes to bring his total up to 3550 and be declared the second winner.
Angela Long was declared on the 18th distribution after receiving a total of 2367 to bring her total up to 3914 to be declared the third winner.
Out of the 15,150 votes cast in the Red Gum Ward, 13,807 votes were determined valid or formal and 1343 were wasted/informal votes.
Unfortunately 49.06 per cent or 10,125 residents of the total number of 25,275 residents enrolled in the Red Gum Ward did not vote.
This is disappointing as there was one whole month of early voting, with multiple pre-poll booths available, together with the added advantage of the postal vote opportunity combined with the seven to eight polling booths located in the ward on election day.
In answer to the question put to me prior the election with regards as to who I would allocate my preferences to, I was true to my reply where I said “I will most definitely not give my key preferences to any running mate but instead to a legitimate candidate. My preferences will be crucial as in the event of me not winning it will help to elect the next candidate.”
In this instance it elected two candidates, tipping Matthew with the necessary 354 votes to obtain the final 3550 election total, and give Angela the 696 votes she needed to tip her total from 3225 to the winning total of 3914.
Hopefully the questionable legitimacy of running mates can be looked into by the time the next council election comes around in four years as political parties should only nominate as many candidates as there are vacancies. This will help allow for a true democratic preferential system to prevail.
Congratulations to all participants and Best wishes to the newly-elected council. It is good to have the first mayor for this new four-year term from the Red Gum Ward.
Thanks one and all and God bless.
Geraldine Gonsalvez,
Dandenong.
