Andy Fraser ahead in Gore by-election but will have to wait for his first council meeting

Tractor sales manager and former police officer Andy Fraser is ahead in the count in the Gore District Council’s Gore ward by-election.

Although if he wins the seat, he will have to wait at least a month to attend his first ordinary council meeting.

With 97% of the vote counted Fraser had 580 votes, ahead of Steven Hamlin with 538 votes and Alan Byrne with 423. There were four informal voting papers and one was blank.

Fraser said he would not comment until the provisional result was known later today.

“What’s that they say about chickens and eggs?’’ he said, when contacted mid-afternoon.

The preliminary result was to be available later on Thursday, and the final result was expected late Monday afternoon, after special votes had been counted.

In his candidate profile, Fraser said he was from a farming background and grew up in the Riverton area, and had been a police officer in Southland for 19 years.

He told Stuff he had the skillset of dealing with people and problems from a neutral point of view, and was used to understanding situations thoroughly.

Fraser was nominated for the vacancy by nominated by Michael O’Neill QSM & Trina Routhan.

Six candidates contested the Gore ward vacancy, which came after long-standing councillor Bret Highsted resigned in April saying that since the local body elections in October he had found the council environment “highly stressful and the levels of anxiety unsustainable”.

Highsted and mayor Ben Bell had clashed on several occasions before he resigned.

At the monthly council meeting on Tuesday night, mayor Ben Bell announced the full council meeting for August was cancelled to give councillors a break, and because there was not much on the agenda.