Status quo in Sheffield, Green Party the only surprise

It was a long night yesterday as my team and I got back from the counting centre at about 3am. We then had to come back to the journalism department to prepare for today's publication. I also had to attend a morning editors' meeting.

This is what I wrote for my course Election Project. It is published in the online media unit's website.

Status quo in Sheffield, Green Party the only surprise
by Kabilan Kandasamy

The Green Party’s victory in the Central ward was the only surprise in an otherwise routine win for the incumbents in the Sheffield local elections yesterday.

The result meant that the Labour party managed to retain its 14 seats, and with it the slim four-seat majority in the council, unlike its horror show nationwide where the party have lost more than 250 seats.

Similarly apart from the single defeat to the Green Party, the Liberal Democrats too retained its other 14 seats. The Conservative however could not replicate its nationwide gains in Sheffield.

The fringe parties – led by the Greens, the British National Party and Respect – also made some headway in Sheffield, following their upward trend country-wide.

The biggest winner was obviously the Green Party which now has two seats on Sheffield council. Interestingly both its candidates come from the same ward.

Yesterday the party’s candidate Bernard James Little obtained 1,159 votes to defeat Lib-Dem’s incumbent Mohammad Azim who got 1,036 votes. It was an evenly contested battle just like two years ago but this time Mr Little gained a majority of 123 votes to overturn a deficit of 218 in 2004.

The environment issues

Immediately after his win, Mr Little said that his main objective was now to concentrate on the environment issues in Sheffield.

“I would like to tackle the issues of air pollution and question the wisdom of building more roads,” he said.

He added that the party hoped to push forward their environmental agenda in the council now that they have two Green voices in it.

“We will also continue to seek support from the community on the many environmental issues. We think it is good that the Green Party is gaining support nationwide and we will continue fighting to protect our environment.”

The losing Lib Dem candidate Mr Azim said the poor turnout was one of the reasons for his defeat. He was also disappointed that a large bulk of student votes seems to go to the Green candidate.

“I am sad that students had not come out to vote and even when they did, it seems to be for the Green Party. We tried engaging them but they are not responding to us,” he said.

Poor turnout

Another fringe party Respect also did well in the only seat it contested in the Burngreave ward, pulling in 1,208 votes but still not enough to unseat the incumbent Labour candidate.

Similarly the BNP too kept up with its nationwide rise by pulling in a substantial number of votes in the four wards it contested - even garnering more than 1,000 votes in one ward - although again these weren’t enough for the party to put a serious fight against the incumbents.

The party’s candidates were roundly booed and jeered at the vote counting centre and outside there was a small noisy but orderly protest against the party.

This however did not deter BNP’s Southey ward candidate David Ian Wright who said that the support for his party was increasing.

The turnout for the local elections in Sheffield was lower than in 2004, with only one ward getting more than 50% of its voters coming out to vote.

In other areas, the average turnout was between 25 to 45 percent.