7th Think Post: Finding Your Candidates Online

Below is my 7th Thinkaboutit.eu post. I have posted it in full so dont forget to rate it on the competition website!

A problem for me during the last European Elections in 2004 was finding out about candidates running for  election. Although I couldn't vote and was sitting my Leaving Certificate I was interested in who was running and finding out more about the candidates in my constituency. In my constituency, Ireland South, there were ten candidates running for three seats. Of the ten, four were independents and not all of them campaigned in Cork so it was hard to find out much about them.

This year elections will be different thanks to two websites based and set up in Ireland. The first is Eurvote, which is just aimed at Irish voters. Eurvote have pages on all the candidates in the Irish Constituencies. Of course they are a bit behind as they already are missing Sean Kelly from the list for Ireland South, but they do have Declan Ganley on the list for Ireland North-West. Eurvote has a page on each candidate (here's Marian Harkin's (Ireland North-West) page as an example) with a link to their website which is handy. They also plan on doing events and are looking for constituents to write analysis in each constituency. Unfortunately I don't know who runs EurVote.org, as their about page is blank!

The second website is miCandidate.eu, which hasn't launched yet, but will in the next month. This is based on the MyCandidate.ie website which ran during the 2007 General Election here in Ireland, that website now redirects to miCandidate. MyCandidate.ie was described as "an exciting and crucial addition to democracy by putting useful information at the fingertips of citizens young and old." by Joe Zefran a News Editor with RTE.ie (received via email), so they are hoping that their European venture will have a big impact. MiCandidate.eu are currently putting together their database on candidates in all 27 member states, but not all seams to be right with them. According to Suzy of Mamanpoulet miCandidate.eu are putting pressure on candidates to sign up and pay up to have their information on this website. This is an example of an email sent to candidates.

We are very concerned that you are one of only a few remaining candidates who has not completed the information form that we sent you. Your profile will appear across dozens of Ireland’s busiest websites from RTE to the Irish Times. Failing to return this form to us in the next 48 hours may result in your profile being entirely empty. Given that candidates profiles were viewed nearly 4 million times in 2007 on RTE and the Irish Times you are giving your competitors in your constituency a huge advantage over you.

This is a free service, but we cannot stress the urgency that we need you to fill out your details. Seats are won and lost by a handful of votes, your competitors profiles will be viewed tens of thousands of times. Your profile will be empty.

Will the web have this type of impact on the European Elections? I don't think so. So should miCandidate be the top of your priority, probably not. Of course there is a paid version, which the Irish Green Party have signed up to for their candidates. Will it be worth the mone only time will tell and I hope that Fine Gael candidates wont spend money which could be spent on leaflets, which as Suzy points out can have the url to your blog/twitter/whatever and get people that can actually vote for you to engage with you. miCandidate are hyping up the net a bit too much in my opinion.

So there you have two websites one free and one free for us the voter, but possible not for the candidate, trying to inform us about the elections. Will they succeed? Will they actually inform people and get them to vote in the European Elections? Will they have an big impact or will they just be link farms to candidates websites, blogs, facebook/bebo pages and twitter accounts? Only time will tell.


Dont forget to rate it!

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Burke gets it wrong on Lisbon

Image via Wikipedia

According to RTÉ, Colm Burke MEP (FG - Ireland South) wants us to vote on Lisbon Treaty in April. But how can we??? The European Council have not agreed the text of the "necessary guarantees" that will, supposedly, get us to change our minds on the treaty.

Colm seams to be showing the effects of working in Brussels, you lose your connection to the people and only want to get your name in the paper, especially considering it is an election.

While Burke has a point when he says "It is not alarmist to state that were we not inside the Union our economic plight would mirror that of Iceland, with double digit interest rates and reliance on an International Monetary Fund bail-out"

But then he goes wrong again by suggesting the Cownen, Kenny and Gilmore should work together, but it has been stated before that, that shouldnt be done in public!

While ideas about Lisbon catch headlines, especially on a Sunday, but sometimes I wish people would think before they speak to the media.

Ireland South will be a tough battle for everyone and making suggestions that are easily rebuffed is not the way to get your name out there.

Best of luck though to Colm Burke and Sean Kelly though in the European Elections.

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EU Election Stuff

One of the great things about this Think About It Competition is that I find out about some really cool websites and Campaigns for the European Elections this coming June. This post is about two of these.

First up is the the European Parliaments own page about the Elections. This has lots of material on the elections. The picture above is in fact the English Logo from the campaign. I has links to the main groupings in the Parliament so you can find out more. It has fact sheets on each member state (heres Irelands). It also gives ten reasons why you should vote in Elections. It has a few pages on news articles from General ones to ones from National Angles. Overall an interesting site, maybe the layout could be a bit better, found they were putting too much on one page, buts thats just me.

The other Website is from Café Babel. Their website is EU Debate 2009. This webiste is trying to create a debate about Europe. It has interesting videos, like this one on how we can save money. It has interesting blogs where you can creat your own!. EUDebate also want to hear about any proposals you may have! Of course they link to the forums over on CaféBabel.com for a more interactive debate! This could be an interesting website as the campaign really gets under way, but it does need fixing. A few of the videos dont work and the main forum is down at the moment. Then agains this isnt properly launched yet, so maybe my expectations are too high, who knows?

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Two FG Candidates for Ireland South?

So Sean Kelly, former President of the GAA has thrown his hat in the ring for a place on the Fine Gael ticket in Ireland South, but can Fine Gael win two seats in Ireland South?

At the last election in 2004 the quota was 121,068. Fine Gael's Simon Coveney got 118,937 first preferences votes. The combined Fianna Fail first preference vote (Brian Crowley and Gerard Collins) was 198,670 and they failed to get two candidates elected.

This strategy was tried in both Ireland East and Ireland North-West in the last elections. It worked well in Ireland East where it succeded in getting both Mairead McGuinness and Avril Doyle elected, but it failed in Ireland North West where Madeleine Taylor-Quinn ended up acting as a vote sweeper for Jim Higgins.

What will be the strategy for Ireland South though? Will it be to be successful like Mairead and Avril or that one of the candidates will act as a vote sweeper.

This will all be decided by Fine Gael members in a meeting after Christmas. I personally am torn over which way I will vote or argue for. Looking at the numbers it dosent seam vaible but when you look back at the results from 1999 in Leinster the idea of running two candidates seams to be a non runner as between Avril and Alan Gills Fine Gael managed only to get Avril elected at the cost of Gillis losing his seat. Is that what will happen in 09, Burke will lose the seat to Kelly? But then in 2004 we win both seats in Ireland East, can that be repeated in 2009 in Ireland South?

It will take me a long time to come to a conclusion on this and would appreciate other peoples thoughts and comments!

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I have listed the other candidates here

Ireland South: A look ahead

So a thread over on Machine Nation got me thinking ahead to next June's European Elections. Some parties, including the Greens, Labour and Sinn Fein have selected their candidates. FF are a foregone conclusion with FG the only major party left to select. Of course Kathy Sinnott will run again. Libertas who say it is "substantially correct" that they have registered as a European Political Party.

So who is running (in no particular order):
Labour (Party of European Socialists) are running Senator Alan Kelly from Tipperary. He was elected on the Agricultural Panel to the Seanad.

Greens (European Greens–European Free Alliance) are running Dan Boyle their leader in Seanad Eireann and Chairman. He was appointed to the Seanad following the loss of his seat in Cork South Central in the 2007 General Election.

I assume Fianna Fail (Union for Europe of the Nations) are running Brian Crowley MEP who is the leader of the UEN in the European Parliament. Brian was first elected in 1994 and has held it since.

Sinn Fein (European United Left–Nordic Green Left) are running Cllr. Toireasa Ferris, former Cathaoirleach of Kerry County Council. Her father, Martin Ferris, is the Sinn Féin TD for Kerry North.

Fine Gael (European People's Party-European Democrats) still have time to decide between Colm Burke, who was co-opted to replace Simon Coveney TD, and former GAA President Sean Kelly. Burke is a former Lord Mayor of Cork with a long history of serving the people of Cork. Kelly on the otherhand will be well known around teh constituency so that convention should be interesting.

Kathy Sinnott MEP (Independence/Democracy) is also expected to run again as she currently heads up the Ind/Dem group in the European Parliament. She ran in the General Election back in 2002 and narrowly lost out on a seat in Cork South Central. She was elected to the European Parliament in 2004.

Thats all the candidates I know of. Other candidates may be announced and I will endeavor to keep this list updated!

Who's Your Candidate?

I got random e-mail from the UEF today about their new President, Andrew Duff MEP, and in looking into how they got my email or trying to find out why they emailed me, I found a petition. The petition is calling for the European Commission President to be elected along with the European Parliament. The petition can be viewed and signed here

Would Libertas please make up its mind!

I'm fed up with news stories like this one from RTÉ.ie this morning, 'Libertas may run candidates for Europe'. This story gets trotted out every now and then but nothing ever happens with it. There is no talk of registering as a political party or anything like that, as of yet.

The Euro's are only eight months away and any political party (new or old) would basically want to be picking there candidates this month or next so that after Christmas there is a straight run from the new Year to the election.

The next election might also see the first elections for trans-European political parties operating under there own banner, including Newropeans and Europe – Democracy – Esperanto, neither of which seam to be running candidates in Ireland.

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Related Posts:
Newropeans, A new pan European Political Party

Euro Vote '09

I found this via a group on facebook that I have gotten involved in. The group is "Voter Registration Campaign for European Elections 2009" and I obviously being of a political disposition and Pro-EU in my own way support it.

The group was created by Michael Bourguignon a dutch writer on www.eurosduvillage.com.

He has suggested three ways of engaging Europeans with the elections that will take place in 2009 in an article on that website entitled "The Individual’s Responsibility for Change".

I would recommend reading the full article, but I have reproduced the 3 ways below!

The three ways are

Firstly, the turn-out numbers for this election have always been low. The facts and figures point to a decreasing rate of participation in an already low voter turn-out. This was represented in statements from the then out-going Parliamentary President in 2004, Pat Cox, that stated that "Regrettably, Europe is too absent from European elections in both East and West." Many analysts saw the elections as presenting the bill for national governments and not taking European issues into hand.

What we need today is a consensus from European parties to engage in their powers of electing Commissioners and other areas where their competence can change Europe. With Lisbon hopefully coming into effect, the powers of the Parliament will be strengthened and parties can have a larger say in choosing the European Commission and European Parliament Presidents. Thus political parties would be able to create platforms that engage in choosing these newly created presidential posts to which citizens can then relate to — personal figures rather than abstract policies.

Secondly, another key component to incorporating citizens into Europe can be taken from the current US elections: creating grassroots campaigns. Europe needs to create a grassroots program where the most unlikely actor can play a crucial role: The Committee of the Regions.

Voting rights are the rights held by individuals and no-where can the subsidarity principle be applied more perfectly than in this area. In order to try to generate a grassroots program the Committee of the Regions must entrust to the local political parties their sense of being able to generate ground action in their areas and call for citizens to get involved. This will bring down the barriers to language and communication and render politics on a local framework to promote a more perfect union.

Finally, what Europe needs to do is to create a European-wide campaign for voter-registration. This will undoubtedly give the campaign back to the citizen and make him part of a larger picture, and finally hope to engage citizens in Europe. Depending on the national voting requirements of each Member State, registering voters, or making them aware how important voting actually is in the overall picture of the EU , will give them a feeling of responsibility for political action and make them feel part European integration. It is a simple formula for imformative action that depends ultimately on individiual responsability to counter the dissatisfaction and alienatation that most Europeans have on when tackling European issues.

So join the facebook group and if you are a EU resident in Ireland ensure you are registered to vote in the Euro's (and Local's) next year by logging on to www.checktheregister.ie!

Newropeans, A new pan European Political Party

Well I saw this over on the Debate Europe Forum and had to have a look at it.

From reading the website the party's aim is

to help turn the EU from a bureaucratic top-down project into a democratically managed political entity. Today, we are facing a profound political crisis and a lack of political leadership in the EU which risks undermining the success of integration. We think that fresh ideas and necessary changes this time will not come from the national governments or Brussels. Newropeans brings new ideas to the EU and is a tool for citizens from throughout the EU to have their say in European affairs. Newropeans will only exist for fifteen to twenty years, the time for the democratisation to be achieved.

How does it plan to do this?

In June 2009, when the European Parliament is next elected, Newropeans will provide millions of Europeans with their first ever opportunity to truly ’act European’. We give citizens throughout the EU the chance to share their vote with all those, throughout the continent, who share a democratic vision of Europe’s future. This is where democratisation starts. At least this is Newropeans’ opinion; if you share it, then you are one of us!

Newropeans currently have members in 12 member states.

Now the all important part what do they stand for? They have 16 Propositions.

1. Ensure that the principle of equality of all European citizens before the law is maintained by eliminating the legal immunity of European officials.
Interesting one. But if we do it for the EU, we will have to do it for the UN, COE etc. etc...

2. Ratify systematically the main changes of community treaties, and in particular enlargements by trans-European referenda.
Yikes, that will be costly. This populist notion could get them a few votes in England and Germany and other countries who population are unsure about Turkey joining the EU.

3. Bring the European institutions closer to the citizens geographically, by decentralising them
We normally give out about MEP's having to go from Brussels to Starsbourg but how in gods name will the EU function if its institutions are spread out. Thats like having the Dail in Galway and the Seanad in Cork, the High Court is Athlone and The Supreme Court in Sligo with the President in Dublin. God, the expense and the arguements over what goes to which country! God no. They suggest the following distribution.

Each country having chosen its “European town” (often the capital) the new European institutional network will gather a first “Euroring” of institutions in a circumference of 500km around Brussels, taking account of the specificity and advantages of each selected town : Parliament (Brussels), Court of Justice (The Hague), European Government (London), Joint European Administration (Paris), Central Bank (Frankfurt), Court of Accounts (Luxembourg). A second “Euroring” will gather together all the other institutions and community agencies in the town retained by each member State.

European Governemnt sticks out dont it? wait till Proposition 5!


4. Respect linguistic diversity of the EU, a fundamental condition for democracy in the EU, whilst ensuring the efficiency of its functioning by the creation of a clear linguistic regime
Dosent the EU already do this?

5. Create a genuine European Government
The big one! It gets its own page! The idea is that it would replace the Council and Commission. Have a read of it. An interesting idea on how the EU could evolve.

6. Ground the European budget on real own resources for the EU, raised in a transparent manner and being subject to regular control
Yikes, there goes all the votes in the UK and Ireland. "A European company and income tax should replace the system of national contributions to the European budget." Mores taxes... eek....
(I supported them till I got to here, then it went downhill!)

7. Ensure that the European Parliament is 50% composed of representatives of national (or regional lists), and 50% from trans-European lists; Offer each citizen two votes in the European elections
Interesting idea, have seen it float about before on ideas for reforming the elctoral system.

8. Create a procedure for evaluating the political system and community administration every decade, independent of the executive, legislative and judicial institutions.
I think every country should do this!!

9. Promote internal mobility within the European Institutions
I hope the EU does this already?

10. Promote a Neighbourhood Policy of the European Union (Privileged Neighbour Status)
The EU Neighbourhood policy exists! what are they babbling on about... ahh, the usual alternative for Turkey not becoming a member state...

11. Increasing the efficacy of the EU’s action in the world by reinforcing the role of the ministry of foreign affairs and structuring a clear and objective European foreign policy
Have they not read the Lisbon treaty?

12. Develop a common immigration policy, pursued at national level and aiming at the immigrants’ full integration in the European society
Immigration olicy at EU level, UK and IRL have opt out i assume as we are not in Schengen? It has its own page

13. Elaborate a common European policy against organised crime and trans-national criminality, namely a specialised European police and judicial network
Ahm, EUROPOL? EUROJUST? do these people even look at Europa?

14. Develop profound and wide initiatives in the domain of education and life-long training.
I'm all for it til I read, "Newropeans supports a pro-active ’European Policy in the field of Education’, but opposes anything which could resemble a ’European Education Policy’." Damn. Its gets its own page also. they also have specific proposals in this area! 6 proposals which are:

• A. The European Educational Central Criterion, E2C2


• B. Future Euro-citizens by Education (FEE) Programme


• C. European Executives Training (EXTRA) Programme


• D. LIfe Long European (LILE)


• E. To encourage bilingual education and to generalize the teaching of a foreign language as of 4 year-old children by mobilising Member States and their regions


• F. To support the introduction in national handbooks of history in secondary schools of “compared visions” for large European historical events

I like E and F alot, and think they are worth following through on!

15. Elaborate an annual social report for the President of the EU, destined to evaluate the social status of the Union (health, education, employment, poverty), based on pre-defined and objective indicators
Dont the EU do this anyway?

16. Mutual reinforcement of political integration, research and competitiveness: common dreams, decisions and entrepreneurship
Isnt that the basis for the EU???

Okay after tearing through their propositions what else do they stand for? Well they oppose Blair as President of the EU, yet to meet someone who wants him as President. They have a manifesto as well as lots of other stuff.

They are in Köln but there is no mention of an Irish branch yet. Theyed want to get cracking if they want candidates for 2009.