by Celina Murphy, Hot Press

With non-Irish nationals making up almost 12% of the country’s population, The Africa Centre and New Community Partnership are on a quest to make the immigrant voice heard in the upcoming local elections.

Setting out to represent the immigrant community in Dublin, South African native Patrick Maphoso faces a much tougher task than your average political candidate. He has to ‘recruit’ his target electorate before he can even start campaigning.

Although they may not all be aware of it, immigrants are permitted to vote in local and European elections, provided they have been living in the country for at least six months by May 18. But unlike Irish nationals, they must go to their local Garda station and get registration forms stamped by a Garda authority – a bigger issue than it might at first seem. Maphoso explains: “Most people aren’t going to go to the Garda station – they have a fear of interrogation or that there might be a problem with their passport and people don’t need that. Some are afraid of deportation.”

For the past month, the independent candidate has been organising voter registration days around the city, in co-operation with The Africa Centre, the objective being to allow potential voters to collect their forms and have them validated by an official, all in the space of a few minutes. But even this part of the process is proving remarkably difficult to orchestrate.

“The last time we tried to get the Guards out here – two weeks ago – to stamp the forms, they didn’t show up,” Maphoso says. “The Africa Centre and the New Community Partnership made a formal request. They never came.”

Despite his dedication to the cause, Maphoso – who works as a security manager – is quick to point out that getting immigrants to register is not part of his job description.

“But I haven’t seen or heard anything from the Council asking people to register to vote,” he observes. “It shouldn’t be left up to people like myself who don’t really have the resources for it.”