Arise Mayor Lawver

Ben Lawver is elected Mayor and Freo has two new Councillors as well as two returning ones

After a strongly contested Mayoral election in City of Fremantle, early this afternoon, when the WA Electoral Commission eventually finished counting the votes, Ben Lawver was declared ‘1st’.

Arise Mayor Lawver!

As we say, the Mayoral election was strongly contested. Here is the vote as currently appearing on the WAEC website after distribution of preferences, where preferences were optionally expressed.

As you can see, Ben Lawver won over former Mayor Hannah Fitzhardinge by 4,441 to 3,589 votes, a margin of 852. Comfortable in the end, but close enough.

As you can also see, the other three candidates all polled well, with over 1,000 primary votes in each case.

Our thanks at Fremantle Shipping News go to each of the candidates who put their hearts and souls into their campaigns. Local Freo democracy is the winner.

We also pay a special tribute to Hannah Fitzhardinge for her service as Mayor over the past four years and for doing the hard yards on behalf of the City of Fremantle. Serving in public elected office is never an easy thing. Thank you, Hannah.

On being contacted by Fremantle Shipping News on his win, Ben Lawver said – ‘Looking forward to the next four years – but this afternoon I’m looking forward to a nap’.

If you need reminding about Ben Lawver’s campaign pitch that saw him elected Mayor, here’s our podcast with Ben at the beginning of his campaign.

And if you’d like to learn more about Ben and how he first came to run for Freo Council, and something of his background, here’s our podcast with Ben from 4 years ago, where he introduces himself, so to speak, just after being elected as a Councillor for the old Ward of Hilton.

Both are good listens.

As to the Ward Councillor elections, they were hotly contested. At this point, the WAEC website is showing the ‘Provisional’ Ward winners as follows –

*Andrew Sullivan has won in Coastal Ward

*Pip Slaughter in East Ward

*Melanie Clark in North Ward

Readers will recall that Fedele Camarda was elected unopposed in Central Ward at the outset of the election period.

Congratulations to the successful Ward winners!

By Michael Barker, Editor, Fremantle Shipping News, with thanks to Tim Slater for his super pics

* If you’d like to COMMENT on this or any of our stories, don’t hesitate to email our Editor.

** WHILE YOU’RE HERE –