Mae Sexton
Mae Sexton (born April 28, 1955) is an Irish politician who was elected as a Progressive Democrat TD for the Longford-Roscommon constituency in the 2002 General Election. She is a native of Longford town. Her election in a heavily rural midland constituency for a party associated in the public mind with the urban upper-middle class came as one of the major surprises of that election, and came after a series of hair-raising escapes from elimination during the progress of the election count.
Early political career
Mae Sexton first became active in elected politics in 1991, when she stood as an independent candidate for Longford Urban District Council and Longford County Council and was elected to both bodies, receiving the largest number of first preference votes in each case. Her appeal was particularly to women voters, although as the daughter of a long-standing Fianna Fáil town councillor and the wife of a local trade union official, she was able to garner a wider base of support. She then stood in the 1992 General Election in Longford-Roscommon as an independent candidate, but obtained only 1,160 first preference votes (2.6%), and was eliminated, failing to be elected.
Prior to the 1997 General Election, she joined the Progressive Democrats, and stood in the Longford-Roscommon constituency for the party, obtaining 2,289 first preference votes (4.8%), and being eliminated on the second count.
She was re-elected to both Longford Urban District and County Councils in the 1999 local elections, although her first preference vote for both bodies had declined.
Run-up to the 2002 Election
Sexton was renominated by the Progressive Democrats to stand at the 2002 General Election. A number of factors combined to make her a more formidable candidate on this occasion.
Firstly, the outgoing Fianna Fáil TD and former Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, whose political base was also in County Longford, had announced his decision to retire, and would be succeeded by a lower-profile Fianna Fáil candidate.
Secondly, the Progressive Democrats had decided to focus on Longford-Roscommon as a constituency where there might be the possibility of a seat gain for the party. To this end, Sexton was heavily promoted by the party, being appointed to the European Committee for the Regions, an EU consultative body. In addition, the announcement by an American medical corporation, Cardinal Healthcare, that it planned to establish a major manufacturing facility in Longford town, was made by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Progressive Democrat party leader, Mary Harney in December 2000, with Sexton being prominently featured at the public announcement. The prospect of 1,300 jobs coming to an economically-depressed area was obviously a major selling-point for Sexton in the general election, although the fact that the facility had not actually materialised by the time of the election in May 2002 meant that some skepticism accompanied the promise of jobs.
Thirdly, the course of the election campaign, with the main opposition Fine Gael party performing poorly in the opinion polls, and the appeal by the Progressive Democrats to vote for them to prevent an overall majority Fianna Fáil government, meant that the tide of public opinion was favourable to the party. In addition, Sexton's undoubted personal charisma and hard constituency work combined to make her an attractive candidate. Her victory, however, was unexpected, even during most of the election count.
Progress of the count
On the first count, Ms. Sexton had increased her number of first preference votes to 4,679 (9.4%). This still left her only in sixth place amongst the candidates, behind all three Fianna Fáil candidates and two of the Fine Gael candidates. The gap between herself and the outgoing Longford-based Fine Gael TD, Louis Belton, was only 83 votes, indicating that she had made major inroads into the Fine Gael vote in Longford.
With the successive eliminations of the minor party and independent candidates, she attracted enough transfers to overtake Belton, and by the sixth count, she had opened up a gap of 300 votes over Belton and was in fifth place in the four-seat constituency. However, the elimination of the County Roscommon-based Fine Gael candidate, John Connor, reversed the gap, leaving Belton with 5,705 votes and Sexton with 5,558 votes, only 193 votes ahead of Úna Quinn, an independent candidate campaigning on the status of Roscommon hospital. Quinn was then eliminated.
Traditionally, votes cast for candidates based in each of the two counties making up the constituency had transferred overwhelmingly to other candidates from the same county. However, a sizeable proportion of Quinn's votes went to the only other female candidate standing. Sexton moved up to 6,071 votes, while Belton was now behind her with 5,832 votes.
There was still a sizeable gap between Sexton and the lowest of the three Fianna Fáil candidates (Peter Kelly, the Longford-based candidate, on 7,980) and the likely outcome in the constituency seemed to be three seats for Fianna Fáil and one for Fine Gael. The outgoing Roscommon-based Fine Gael TD, Denis Naughten, had been elected on Quinn's transfers, and his surplus, which consisted of votes transferred from Quinn, was now to be distributed, leaving the possibility that Belton might still overhaul Sexton.
Naughten's surplus, while favouring Belton over Sexton, was not enough to close the gap. Sexton, with 6,301 votes, survived, while Belton, with 6,215 votes, was eliminated by a margin of 86 votes. Sexton was still well behind Kelly, however, who had 8,005 votes, and victory seemed unlikely.
With no remaining Fine Gael candidate in the race, however, Belton's transfers heavily favoured the other two Longford-based candidates, with Sexton receiving the lion's share. Kelly received 1,313 of Belton's transfers, increasing his tally to 9,318 and ensuring his election, but Sexton received 2,616, moving her to 8,917, one vote ahead of Michael Finneran of Fianna Fáil on 8,916, and 55 votes ahead of the third Fianna Fáil candidate, Greg Kelly on 8,862. As there were no further votes to be transferred, Kelly, Sexton and Finneran were declared elected for the remaining three seats.
Aftermath
The Cardinal Healthcare facility failed to materialise after the election. It had become obvious locally that it was unlikely to ever materialise, long before the formal announcement by the company in October 2002, five months after the election, that it was "deferring" its investment. Cardinal officially cancelled the investment in 2004. This was a major embarrassment to Sexton and her party, but it was alleviated by the decision of another American pharmaceutical company, Abbott Laboratories, to establish a facility in Longford, which did materialise, opening in 2005.
Sexton has maintained an active profile within County Longford and has built a minor profile nationally as a panellist on political discussion programmes on radio and television. In June 2005, she attracted attention by calling for the Irish government to abandon plans for a referendum on the European Constitution after the defeats of the referendums in France and the Netherlands.
However, her political future may well be endangered by the changes in constituency boundaries which will come into force at the next general election. County Longford will be transferred to a new Longford-Westmeath constituency. This will bring a number of strong political personalities such as Mary O'Rourke, Willie Penrose and Donie Cassidy into contention for votes in Sexton's Longford base, while the lack of a Progressive Democrat party organisation in Westmeath may make it more difficult for her to repeat her extraordinary performance of 2002. At the local elections in 2004, in which Sexton was not allowed to stand because of the abolition of the dual mandate allowing TDs and Senators to serve on local councils, her personal vote largely failed to transfer to her local party colleagues, with her County Council seat being lost and only the Longford Town Council seat being held.
(See the article Elections in Ireland for an explanation of the Irish electoral system.)