Markham not approached by party

INDEPENDENT General Election candidate, Brian Markham has said he has not been approached by a political party.
The young West Clare man garnered in excess of 2,000 votes, more than 1,500 of them first preferences, and emerged as a credible future candidate for both local and national politics. He also indicated that he intended to run in the local elections. Since then, there had been some suggestions that he had been approached by at least one of the main political parties.
“There has been no approach or anything like that, not even informally. For the minute I am an Independent,” Mr Markham told The Clare Champion.
At Saturday’s count the first-time election candidate was adamant that he would remain non-party for future elections, saying he would “definitely go Independent”.
By Wednesday he had softened his stance a little, growing more like a politician by the day.
“I would be willing to listen to anyone who wanted to talk to me. I don’t know what the future holds, if I did we would all be rich,” he said.
Mr Markham decided to run for election because of the problems he saw facing his own generation, problems he felt were not being addressed.
“One of the main reasons I stepped forward is because it is not really a young person’s game. There was a big gap in Clare between me and the next youngest candidate. We need young people to get interested, we are obviously the future of the country and people need to look at that and get more young people involved,” he stated.
While running for election is costly and time intensive, it is an experience he believes more young people should get involved in.
Looking back on his remarkable achievement, attracting votes in every polling station in the constituency bar four (Flagmount, Kilbaha, New Quay and Boston), he said, “The whole experience was really enjoyable. Obviously, the count and the number of votes was a major highlight and surprised a lot of people. The whole thing was a big learning curve.
“Obviously, I am disappointed not to be elected but I was realistic from the beginning, I knew it would be hard and I am delighted to finish up on 2,000 votes,” he concluded.