With almost 100,000 votes now counted – from a total 120,000 registered voters – it’s now Sustainable Australia Party and the Macarthur Greens who are neck and neck in a race for the 15th and final seat on Campbelltown Council.
As it stands, both will have at least candidate elected, but one of the pro environment parties will end up with two.
With 20,000 votes still to be counted, including postals, Macarthur Greens are ahead with 1.75 quotas.
Sustainable Australia Party are currently on 1.59, so have quite a bit of ground to make up to overtake the Macarthur Greens.
But nobody is willing to cal the final result, with so many votes to be counted.
What we do know so far is that 14 councillors will be sitting around the Campbelltown Council chamber at the first post election meeting.
The new council will have three councillors representing the new merged entity, Community First Totally Independent Party: Josh Cotter, Warren Morrison and Seta Berbari.
Macarthur Greens will have at least one, and the same goes for Sustainable Australia Party.
Masud Khalil’s Community Voice of Australia has won two seats on the council.
Adam Zahra, a member of One Nation who ran as an independent, has also won a seat.
Labor now looks destined to only win six seats.
The NSW Electoral Commission, which conducted the 2024 local government elections, reports an informal vote at almost 21 percent currently.
Over in Camden, the Libertarian Party, formerly Liberal Democrats, have won two spots on the new council.
And while this may give them the balance of power, especially in electing the next mayor, they will not have the massive influence over development that’s been portrayed in the metropolitan media.
In central ward the two former mayors, Therese Fedeli and Ashleigh Cagney have been elected to four more years. The third person elected there is Peter McLean, who ran as an independent.
In North ward independent Abha Suri won one spot, Labor Party one and the Libertarian Party one.
In south ward Labor and the Libertarian party have won each, and it looks like veteran Eva Campbell who has .74 of a quota could scrape in for her umpteenth term on Camden Council. Standing in her way is Cindy Cagney, who ran as an independent this time and is on .63 of a quota, with around 5000 votes still to be counted.
Camden has also seen a massive number of informal votes cast, more than 17,000 so far.
The election will be formally declared on October 3, and that will also signal the start of the wheeling and dealing for mayors in both Campbelltown and Camden.
