FREE STATE ELECTIONS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 2 September 1927, Page 9

FREE STATE ELECTIONS

SHORT, BITTER CAMPAIGN.

ALL PARTIES WORKING FRANTICALLY.

MR COSGRAVE EXPECTED TO RETAIN MAJORITY.

8Y CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT Received 12.30 p.m. to-day. LONDON, Sept. 1.

The Free State nominations close on Saturday, when the shortest and bitterest campaign in Ireland’s history begins. The parties are frantically grouping themselves with a view- to the avoidance of the waste voting-power necessary under the proportional representation. Mr. Cosgrave will succeed in reducing the number of Independent candidates, but the Farmers Party, which had five seats in the late Dail, refused to amalgamate with Mr Cosgrave, but i„ advising its supporters to give the second preference to the Cosgraveites. The latter will probably nominate 100, the Farmers Party 28, the De Valeraites 80, and the Labour, which is admittedly financially weak, is reducing its nominations. Mr. Johnson (Labour Leader) emphatically denies that Labour is any wise allied with De Valera. On the whole no striking turnover of votes is expected. Two Dublin Conservative papers forecasts give Mr Cosgrave a fifty-fifty share of the seats, which will mean only the narrowest margin of safety.