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A Wildcard in Galway West
Read more about: Fianna Fail, Galway West
In a move that has been building for weeks, Senator Margaret Cox has resigned from the Fianna Fail parliamentary party. [RTE]. She has not resigned from the party, yet, but the possibility of a run as an independent in Galway West remains open. This follows her complaints last week about the Galway water crisis, but to this today she added more general frustration with the goverment’s commitment towards the West. Indeed with various Dublin areas already quite shaky for FF (as the European elections showed), they can ill afford discontent in the ranks in the BMW region.
If she be taking the view that if she got ahead of Connolly and Crowe on the 1st count she could overhaul Grealish and take the last seat instead of the Greens.
Yes there’s definitely some personal strategy at work. I don’t know enough about the local politics to know whether the Greens have been hurt by the water crisis with a Green mayor in the city.
Au contraire - the water scandal has helped O’Brolchain’s profile no end (to the point where Crowe - the 3rd FF candidate - has taken to attacking him over his reaction to the crisis, just to get noticed). I don’t think Cox has much of a chance either as an Independent or in FF. FF will only get 3 seats if FG and the PDs lose out (Noel Grealish [PD] and Padraig McCormack [FG] , both sitting TDs, are not polling well , and that 3rd seat will go to Crowe. There simply isn’t room for Cox as well.
I reckon the Galway West trend looks like O’Cuiv to top the poll, Frank Fahey next, Michael D Higgins, O’Brolchain and then a shoot-out for the last seat between McCormack, Grealish and Crowe. the question is if the “Bobby Molloy” vote will stay within the PDs [they ran three candidates, did a great vote management and got Grealish in as a result] or will leak to FF or the Greens.
Did you see the City Channel “Galway West Special” on NTL? It’s not a foregone conclusion that Frank Fahey or Noel Grealish will take those seats. Margaret Cox has an excellent chance of disturbing Frank’s vote. See http://www.margaretcox.com or YouTube for a link to the heated exchange between them.