Go West – Looking at Onslow-Western

The Onslow-Western Ward must be a daunting beast for any prospective candidate. It stretches from Makara, to deepest darkest Karori, then all the way to Ngaio, spanning the general electorates of Wellington Central and Ohariu.

Campaigning in such a huge ward will always be difficult, and local connections and an existing profile would certainly help.

In the 2007 election there were only five candidates for the three seat ward. They were Jo Coughland, Andy Foster, John Morrison, Jack Ruben and Pauline Scott.

Andy Foster and John Morrison got enough first preference votes to be elected in the first iteration (4246 and 3296 respectively), which is quite a feat. Even though Jack Ruben got more first preferences than Jo Coughlan (2352 to 2170) when the preferences were redistributed from Andy, John and Pauline Scott; Jo Coughlan managed to pick up the third seat.

So far the only declared candidate for the ward is Sharon Blaikie, from the Labour Party (again, if I’m incorrect here, please leave a comment or email wccwatch@gmail.com). Our candidates page assumes that all sitting councillors are standing again until we hear otherwise. In this case, I would certainly assume Andy Foster is standing, and that he will win. He has a strong profile and I would be very surprised if he doesn’t again get the most first preferences.

Sharon’s early candidate selection and campaigning is a good move. If she is using the time to build her profile she stands a very good chance of knocking off Jo Coughlan.

It will be an interesting race though – Jo is rather well connected politically (she is married to Conor English, Chief Executive of Federated Farmers and brother of Bill), and one would assume that Sharon will be getting quite a bit of help from the Labour Party machine. One or two more candidates entering the race could really start to throw the electoral math.