An informal poll conducted by Agriland has suggested that Francie Gorman could become the next president of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA).
The beef and sheep farmer from Co. Laois is currently contesting the presidential election against Limerick dairy farmer Martin Stapleton.
Over 2,200 Agriland readers took part in the straw poll which ran from just before 1:00p.m yesterday (Monday, December 11) until 8:00a.m today(Tuesday, December 12).
60% or 1,367 readers believe that Gorman, the current IFA South Leinster Regional chair, will be named the next president of IFA.
884 votes were cast in favour of Martin Stapleton, the current IFA National Treasurer, succeeding Tim Cullinan as IFA president.
Poll
The poll results also show that Alice Doyle is the favourite among Agriland readers to be the new IFA deputy president.
If elected, the Wexford-based farmer and former school principal would make history as the first woman to hold the position in the farm organisation.
Doyle is contesting the election against Pat Murphy a dairy and suckler farmer from Co. Galway.
Almost 61% (1,106) of the 1,822 votes cast in the Agriland poll selected Doyle as the candidate to take over from Brian Rushe as IFA deputy president. There were 716 votes for Murphy.
Meanwhile, the counting of votes in the IFA presidential elections got underway just before 8:30a.m today at the Castleknock Hotel in Dublin.
The count will include over 22,000 postal ballots from IFA members across the country.
This is the first IFA presidential election where members had the option to cast their ballots either at their local branch Annual General Meeting (AGM) or by postal vote.
Agriland understands that almost 30,000 votes in total have been received by IFA headquarters, which will significantly exceed the voter turnout of the previous IFA presidential election.
In 2019, a total of 22,998 votes were cast by members of the IFA in the presidential elections.
At that time membership of IFA was around 72,000 which resulted in a voter turnout of just below 32%.
The counting of votes will also take place for three IFA regional chair positions: Connacht, Munster and South Leinster.
James Gallagher from Leitrim and Brendan Golden from Mayo are running for regional chair in Connacht.
Mark Connors from Waterford and Conor O’Leary from Cork Central are contesting for Munster regional chair.
Tom Byrne from Wicklow, Pat Farrell from Kildare and Paul O’Brien from Kilkenny are battling it out for the South Leinster regional chair position.
Stay tuned to Agriland for all of the latest developments as they happen at the IFA election count centre…