DrSzin
16-Apr-03, 11:51
Will there be voter apathy in Caithness in the local council elections on May 1st?
For perhaps half the people of Caithness, the answer is a resounding "no".
Why? Because they won't get a chance to be apathetic -- they have no-one to vote for!
From last week's Groat:
Five Caithness council wards to be contested
CAITHNESS doesn't appear to be suffering from municipal apathy with half of the ten wards scheduled to be contested in the forthcoming Highland Council elections.
Hmm... what a strange article. I would have most likely come to the opposite conclusion. Five of the ten Caithness seats are uncontested, and, of the three that are contested, only two have more than two candidates, with 3 folk standing in each seat. Overall, this is not exactly a great advertisement for local democracy...
This seems slightly surprising. One often sees complaints about both Caithness and non-Caithness politicians on this site. These are usually along the lines of "Our/Inverness/Edinburgh/London politicians don't listen to (or care about) us up here". Given that very few folk are willing to stand for the council, perhaps this isn't surprising....
I can think of lots of reasons for this "municipal apathy", many of them entirely honourable, but what do Caithness residents think?
For the Groat article, see: http://www.caithness-courier.co.uk/news.asp?storyvar=3395
And for the list of candidates, see: http://www.caithness.org/fpb/election2003/councilcandidates.htm
Finally, before anyone gets upset, I am being deliberately contentious. I know that (at least) two of our regular correspondents are standing for election, and I wish them the best of luck on May 1st.
For perhaps half the people of Caithness, the answer is a resounding "no".
Why? Because they won't get a chance to be apathetic -- they have no-one to vote for!
From last week's Groat:
Five Caithness council wards to be contested
CAITHNESS doesn't appear to be suffering from municipal apathy with half of the ten wards scheduled to be contested in the forthcoming Highland Council elections.
Hmm... what a strange article. I would have most likely come to the opposite conclusion. Five of the ten Caithness seats are uncontested, and, of the three that are contested, only two have more than two candidates, with 3 folk standing in each seat. Overall, this is not exactly a great advertisement for local democracy...
This seems slightly surprising. One often sees complaints about both Caithness and non-Caithness politicians on this site. These are usually along the lines of "Our/Inverness/Edinburgh/London politicians don't listen to (or care about) us up here". Given that very few folk are willing to stand for the council, perhaps this isn't surprising....
I can think of lots of reasons for this "municipal apathy", many of them entirely honourable, but what do Caithness residents think?
For the Groat article, see: http://www.caithness-courier.co.uk/news.asp?storyvar=3395
And for the list of candidates, see: http://www.caithness.org/fpb/election2003/councilcandidates.htm
Finally, before anyone gets upset, I am being deliberately contentious. I know that (at least) two of our regular correspondents are standing for election, and I wish them the best of luck on May 1st.