ELECTION IN CLUTHA

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28489, 20 January 1958, Page 8

ELECTION IN CLUTHA

National Retains Seat

(New Zeaiana Press Association) DUNEDIN, January 19. The National Party retained the Clutha seat with a reduced majority at the Parliamentary election held yesterday., Tne National candidate. Mr J. Al Roy polled 1730 more votes than his Labour opponent, Mr J. Fahey,, arid the 1000 or so postal votes yet to be counted cannot affect the result. Two thousand fewer' people voted than in the 1954 General Election and the trend in the voting was from Social Credit to

Labour. On the final count in 1954, Mr C. Aberdeen, the 'Social Credit candidate, polled 2026 votes. This year, he had only 294 cast in his favour, and the Labour figures jumped correspondingly. Polling returns so far are:— J. A. Roy (National), 6344. . J. Fahey (Labour* 4621. C. Aberdeen (Social Credit) 294. Yesterday, 11.259 electors voted. In 1954, the number was 13,444. Party cars, in an endeavour to get voters to the booths called at every home in each main town at least three times during the day. “I did not expect there would be as full a vote on this occasion as if the election had been held, at the normal time,” said Mr Roy. last night. “The campaign from my point of view was quite ’satisfactory.” i “I had the feeling that if the campaign had lasted another two weeks we could have further reduced the majority.” said Mr Fahey. • . Mr Aberdeen said he was not disappointed. “I knew that with all the ‘big guns’ concentrated in the area. Social Credit would not be considered to any extent as a lot of people would not think it worthwhile when we had no seats.” <