PRESS RELEASE
LaRouche-Allied Party in Australia Has
Strong Election Showing
MELBOURNE, April 7, 2003 (EIRNS)—The Citizens Electoral Council of Australia (CEC), a political party with strong ties to Lyndon LaRouche's international political movement, has continued its recent run of strong electoral results, this time in New South Wales. Final figures have just been released for the March 22 New South Wales state election, in which ICLC member and CEC State Secretary Ann Lawler polled 7.3% of the first preference votes in the electoral district of Maitland, north of Sydney. After preferences were distributed (a complex process in which voters have the option to nominate their personal preference for each candidate by numbering them on the ballot paper), Lawler's final vote was 8.4%.
This was the third state election in a row in which CEC/LaRouche candidates polled above 7%, following Andre Kozlowski's 8.9% in Victoria last November, and Jean Robinson's 7% in Western Australia in February 2001.
Lawler's 7.3% vote, is a step-up again from even Kozlowski's excellent 8.9% in Victoria, because whereas the latter was one of just three candidates, and hence the only alternative to the two major parties, Lawler was one of eight, several of whom were clearly put in the race merely to suppress her vote totals. Furthermore, the Greens party, who are seen as the main anti-war party, and who have recently assumed the role previously held by Pauline Hanson's One Nation as the "official" alternative to the Establishment, were well-beaten by Lawler in her campaign, despite polling impressively in all other districts in the state.
Lawler's campaign was focussed around the person and ideas of Lyndon LaRouche, and the enthusiasm of the Australian arm of the international LaRouche Youth Movement. In the four months of the campaign, 600 voters in Lawler's election district officially joined the CEC party. A local paper, the Maitland Mercury, initially tried to black out Lawler's campaign, which they admitted had been because of her outspoken association with LaRouche. This censorship precipitated a war between Lawler's campaign and the paper, which eventually forced the paper to back down, and provide fair coverage. This episode showed local supporters that political battles can be won, and sparked an enthusiasm that characterized the rest of the campaign. As one local old timer said, the campaign turned out to be "the biggest event in Maitland since the 1955 flood."
Complementing Lawler's vote, many other CEC candidates, particularly in her region of the state, also polled well. Most polled over 2%, and a few polled nearly 4%. This vote provides a strong launching pad for the CEC's Federal election campaign, which is due in the next 12-18 months. It also, once again, gives the lie to the longtime Jewish Anti-Defamation Commission's line about the CEC—by which they are presently attempting to have CEC banned from Federal politics—namely, that "The CEC raises all this money and never gets any votes, so they must be doing something illegal with the money."
