Local Body Elections To Be Held Today

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29952, 13 October 1962, Page 10

Local Body Elections To Be Held Today

Electors throughout New Zealand will go to the polls today to elect their mayors, city, borough, and county councils, and a wide range of othfer local bodies.

In Christchurch, the main interest will be in the mayoralty and the City Council. The sitting Mayor (Mr G. Manning), a longstanding Labour representative in local body affairs, will be opposed for the second time by Mr H. P. Smith, who has been the leader of the Citizens’ Association-held council for the last three years and Deputy-Mayor.

One of the most formidable lists for voters will confront city electors for the City Council. It contains 44 names. From them electors have to choose 19 councillors, but they can vote for any number fewer than that if they wish. Both the Labour Party and the Citizens’ Association have full “tickets” of 19, two candidates are members of the Communist Party, and the others are independents. Both parties have urged electors to vote, and both will have their party organisations out in force today to take persons to the polls. If election meeting attendances are an indication, today's poU will be one of the (lightest for many years. Audiences have been extremely poor except for the opening nights of the campaigns, and at times candidates spoke to only their fellow candidates and possibly a newspaper reporter on a street corner and hoped that their message had gone across to someone in a nearby house. Three years ago the poll

for tihe mayoralty was only about 34 per cent. This year there are 75.671 electors on the city roll. Outside the city, the nearest neighbour, Riccarton borough, has no election for mayor or council, but Riccarton electors will have a chance to vote for three ad hoc bodies —the North Canterbury Hospital Board on which they share representation with Paparua; the Lyttelton Harbour Board, for which they are joined with Waimairi county to elect one representative; and the North Canterbury Catchment Board, for which they have a joint interest with the city in four seats. For the hospital and harbour boards both the Citizens’ Assciation and Labour Party have put up the full number of candidates to match the seats, but for the North Canterbury Catchment Board, which has been a virtual Citizens' monopoly. Labour has nominated only two candidates for the four city-Riccarton seats.

In 1959 the Citizens’ Association almost “swept the poll,” losing only the mayoralty and one seat on the Harbour Board, which was also held by Mr Manning. In the counties around Christchurch elections are being held in several wards. Polling places will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Hotel hours are not affected by the elections. One of the earliest results to be known should be the mayoralty of Christchurch Mr C. S. Bowie, the Returning Officer, should be able to announce the provisional result before 9 p.m. Other election-day results should be known later this evening.