{"id":148325,"date":"2025-10-27T19:45:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T19:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/148325\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T19:45:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T19:45:10","slug":"sean-kelly-says-he-was-shafted-by-fine-gael-candidate-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/148325\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Kelly says he was \u2018shafted\u2019 by Fine Gael candidate process"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sean Kelly said he feels as if he was \u201cshafted\u201d in Fine Gael\u2019s process to pick a presidential candidate.<\/p>\n

Mr Kelly sought the party\u2019s nomination at the same time as eventual candidate Heather Humphreys after Fine Gael\u2019s first pick, Mairead McGuinness, withdrew on health grounds.<\/p>\n

However, Ms Humphreys was selected as the party\u2019s candidate by the majority of the Fine Gael parliamentary party and he ultimately withdrew.<\/p>\n

She would go on to secure less than half the vote of the eventual winner, left-wing independent Catherine Connolly.<\/p>\n

Mr Kelly said on Monday that within the party, there has been \u201cdisappointment\u201d and \u201cutter depression\u201d with the result.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they were disappointed with the way the nomination process was handled.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody knew I was going to be a candidate, and within an hour of my declaring I was a candidate, Heather Humphrey has declared she was a candidate.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd within an hour of that, basically it was nearly all over as nearly all the members of the parliamentary party came out, one after another, saying they were going for Heather.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"HeatherHeather Humphreys was eventually selected as the party\u2019s candidate (Niall Carson\/PA)<\/p>\n

Mr Kelly said he was blocked by the parliamentary party from his potential candidacy going to councillors for a vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019d have had a great chance of winning.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cYou have to ask yourself why there was such a determined effort to stop me from getting the nomination?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d have to say, maybe because I would win it \u2013 and that\u2019s the way I would have been approaching it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it didn\u2019t happen. So I\u2019m going to get on with my life, and I\u2019m not going to let it upset me too much.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs they all said \u2018two great candidates\u2019, but one was anointed and the other was shafted, essentially.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if he was blocked by the party leadership, Mr Kelly said: \u201cThat\u2019ll all come out in the wash.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was blocked certainly by the parliamentary party, no doubt about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Saturday and Sunday, there were members of the parliamentary party getting on to me, saying now is my chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SimonT\u00e1naiste Simon Harris (Niall Carson\/PA)<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cAnd when I got back to them on Tuesday, they said: \u2018Sorry Sean, we can\u2019t nominate you\u2019. So certainly, I think that\u2019s something that will be looked at and probably reflected on in due course.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Choosing<\/p>\n

Ireland<\/p>\n

Choosing Humphreys for presidential election was ‘cardinal mistake’, says retired Fine Gael TD<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Asked if Simon Harris should continue as leader, Mr Kelly said: \u201cHe is the leader at the moment and he shall continue to be, I think, into the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, the question of who leads the party is a matter for membership of the party and it\u2019s a matter for Simon himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think the key point here is that things weren\u2019t handled as well as the membership would have liked, and it is time to reflect that, to say that, and then to respond accordingly by changing, maybe, approach.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sean Kelly said he feels as if he was \u201cshafted\u201d in Fine Gael\u2019s process to pick a presidential…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-148325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115447852521936757","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}