Invalid nominations dash candidates’ election hopes

Press, 5 September 1989, Page 7

Invalid nominations dash candidates’ election hopes

By

KAY FORRESTER

Two Canterbury Regional Council

candidates have had their election hopes dashed by the returning officer’s decision that their nominations were invalid.

Canterbury Labour’s De Neil Cherry and Christchurch Action’s Mrs Pieter Stewart were disqualified because the people who nominated them did not live in the area in which the candidates were seeking election.

Four candidates for community board positions were also disqualified for the same reason or because they did not have the required two nominators.

Dr Cherry, who was the leader of the Canterbury Labour team in the Fitzgerald constituency, was devastated to learn of his exclusion on Saturday. Mrs Stewart, a Godley constituency candidate, was equally shocked to hear of her disqualification yesterday. The four others to be ruled out were Mrs Wendy Rush (United Citizens), Mrs Mamaitaloa Afitu and Mrs Tufugaholoatu Lagatule, all standing for Pegasus community board places, and Mr Alistair Rogers, a contender for the Ferrymead board.

Mrs Afitu had also filed a nomination for the Canterbury Area Health Board which was disallowed.

Both Dr Cherry and Mrs Stewart believed their nomination forms were in order and that their nominators lived in the correct area. Dr Cherry acknowledged he had not checked the actual addresses of his nominators but assumed that the north part of the Fendalton electorate, in which one nominator lived, would be in the Fitzgerald constituency.

“There are tens of thousands of people in Fitzgerald who would have been pleased to nominate me and vote for me. They will all be disappointed,” he said.

He said there had been confusion about the boundary between the two Christchurch constituencies of Fitzgerald and Godley. He had put in his nomination last Wednesday, two days before the deadline, assuming it would be checked. He thought he would be notified if it was invalid but conceded there was no obligation on the returning officer to do that.

He had sought a legal opinion on what he could do. His advice was that it was unlikely he would win a case that disqualifying his nomina-

tion was not fair administration. “At this stage I’m not proceeding with court action.”

Someone else might take up the case on his behalf. Mr Patrick Neary, a veteran member of the Christchurch Transport Board and of the Christchurch City transitional committee, believes the returning officer’s ruling is not in the spirit of democracy intended by the Government.

Mr Neary said Dr Cherry and Mrs Stewart were legitimate candidates and should have been given the opportunity to amend their nomination forms. He will call for that at the transitional committee meeting on Thursday. The returning officer, Mr Max Robertson, said the onus was on candidates to check the validity of their nominations. Invalid nominations could not be altered after the deadline.

Dr Cherry said he would continue to support his team in the election and would now concentrate his efforts on again securing the Labour Party nomination for the Fendalton electorate in next year’s General Election. He unsuccessfully contested it three years ago against National’s Mr Philip Burdon.