The IFA Ulster/north Leinster regional chair election has cranked up and got quite heated as voting moves to a close.

This week saw hustings in the candidates’ home counties, with James Speares’ native Cavan voting on Monday, and Nigel Renaghan’s Monaghan following on Tuesday evening.

The last county to vote is Louth, on Thursday. The following day sees the count take place in the only national “mid-term” national election. The contest is seen as too close to call.

The experience Renaghan gained in 25 head-to-head debates during the IFA deputy presidential race in early 2017 have stood to him during the hustings, but Speares is running a strong ground game, and may be shading it to date.

The winner will succeed Monaghan’s Bert Stewart, who has served the maximum two two-year terms.

Divisive remark

The election had been almost under the radar until a remark by James Speares at last week’s Westmeath meeting.

While responding to a question about encouraging more participation of both young people and women in IFA, Speares said: “I’m going to crack a joke here. Women have smaller feet so they can get closer to the sink.”

There was no immediate reaction from the room, but the issue has rumbled on for days.

It’s understood Speares was engaged by some IFA members on the issue prior to Monday night’s meeting in his own county.

On Tuesday, Speares told the Irish Farmers Journal: “I apologise unreservedly for the comments made at the Westmeath IFA debate.”

This is the only IFA election taking place at this time, with other positions uncontested.

Tom Short is the only nominee to succeed James Murphy in south Leinster. John Coughlan in Munster and Padraig Joyce in Connacht were first elected last year and so are eligible to stand again.

Both are unopposed and thus re-elected for another two years. Similarly, Joe Healy and Richard Kennedy are unopposed.

Complex rules

Predicting the outcome is not made any easier by the rather complicated system of voting.

Each branch nominates four voting members to the executive. These are the chair, secretary, returning officer and fourth delegate. At least one of these four positions must be filled by a woman.

Votes are weighted according to the size of the branch the delegate comes from, with one extra vote for every 25 members.

In addition, each county officer and commodity chair has a single vote.

There are 194 branches across the seven counties in the region. Meath is the biggest with 37 branches, closely followed by the candidates’ home counties – Monaghan has 34 branches, Cavan 32. The remaining counties are Donegal (30 branches) Westmeath (26 branches) Longford (18) and Louth (17).