A TOTAL OF 551 candidates are set to contest the 2016 general election this day next week.
Before last week’s deadline day passed, many people declared their intention to run, only to drop out before nominations began. Their reasons for withdrawing from the race were varied.
Amongst the drop-outs was one potential candidate who, with a strong following on social media, stood out from the rest.
Aislinn Tongue
A Twitter account was set up under the name Aislinn Tongue back in 2011.
Aislinn then declared an intention to run in the election (also on Twitter) in late-December 2015.
The most enigmatic of all those who didn’t even make the start line, Aislinn promoted her campaign almost entirely through social media.
In fact, despite there being no pictures available of her, nor any face-to-face interviews done (or even, it seems, phone interviews), Aislinn was at one point the eighth-most followed female election candidate on Twitter, according to data compiled by womenforelection.ie (she had 11,300 followers at the time of writing).
Her election profile in the Tallyman’s Guide (shared on her Twitter) states that she was born and raised in rural Thailand and moved to Ireland in 2006, becoming an Irish citizen in 2009. The profile says that she is married with two children, and is self-employed as a massage therapist in Cork city centre.
However, this information is hard to verify. What we know is that there are no listings for a massage therapist under that name in Cork city, nor any matching names in the phone directory.
Aislinn dropped out of the race at the last minute, citing that she couldn’t find an election agent to manage her campaign. Under Section 28 of the Electoral Act (1997), a candidate must appoint an election agent for their campaign, mainly to manage their finances.
However, a candidate can appoint anyone they want to be their election agent, or even themselves if they choose so the argument of not being able to find an agent is a hard one to make.
In an emailed statement to TheJournal.ie, Aislinn first stated that she had dropped out for the above reason (not having an election agent).
“I was serious about running,” the statement reads.
I had the backing and would have aired the migration, graft (charity, government, rte etc) abortion, election expenses etc, issues. I would have also made a nice pile of euro too.
When told that she did not need an agent other than herself to run, she replied:
“I did not realise that if you did not nominate an agent then you were your own agent and you could really do what you want about expenses cause [sic] nobody checks at all.”
I suppose at the end of the day the REAL REASON I did not run……thinking about it now is …. Myself and my family would be in the spotlight. That is why I never signed the paper and paid the 500. Nothing is worth that.
Outspoken
Since dropping out of the race, the Twitter account under the name Aislinn Tongue has become increasingly outspoken – directly attacking election candidates and political parties, using bad language, and taking on broad, controversial views.
The account also drew the ire of the Irish Council Against Blood Sports, which took issue with Tongue saying that she was in favour of badger baiting and other forms of animal cruelty.
Aislinn didn’t respond to repeated requests for an interview over the phone, so TheJournal.ie cannot independently verify that the Twitter account is in fact the person that it purports to be.
The fact that it seems that an unverified Twitter account and Facebook page was all that was needed to get onto several online candidate databases (including RTÉ, the Tallyman’s Guide and this website), may say a lot about the focus on social media in election campaigns across the developed world.
It may not be a “real Aislinn Tongue” behind the account but someone certainly is doing the typing and they – whoever they are – are undoubtedly causing quite a stir.
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