County Chairmen from the five Connacht counties, Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo and Leitrim, will today be voting for a Connacht IFA Chairman.
The region has been in deadlock for over two months, as one candidate was nominated from each county for the top job in Connacht meaning no county could endorse another to go forward for the position.
As it stands, no candidate has met the previous criteria for the position and no candidate was willing to pull out of the race and give their county signature to another.
In order to appoint a representative for the region, today each County Chairman will vote to endorse one of the other candidates from outside their County Executive by voting 1, 2, 3 in a secret ballot.
The new process will close by 3.30pm today, Friday, May 6.
Subject to the outcome being a contested election, the Executive Council agreed in principle to a rule change whereby this election would be based on the votes of the members of the five County Executives and the weighted vote from the recent Presidential election would not apply.
The five candidates are Tom Turley (Galway), Padraic Joyce (Mayo), John O’Beirne (Roscommon) Des McHugh (Leitrim) and Eddie Davitt (Sligo).
Earlier this year, Sligo IFA submitted a possible solution to the Connacht IFA deadlock to National Council.
In the proposal, Sligo requested a rotating Connacht Chairman every two years in the region as a resolution to the stalemate.
However, a source told Agriland that the IFA was “afraid that adopting the proposal could open a can of worms” – in that if that was the case for Connacht then every county could then nominate a candidate for IFA President.