Dolores Kelly will lead her canvassing team back into the Kilwilkie estate in Lurgan at seven PM tonight, accompanied by Alban Maginness and Mark Durkan. On Tuesday night she was confronted by a masked gunman who told her to get out in five minutes or she would be shot.

A separate canvass team was also confronted by people in exceptionally well-sewn balacavas and told Dolores would be shot. Dolores is not taking any of this:

“Let me make this very clear to those people who think they can intimidate me or my party - they will not. This is an affront to democracy. I am proud to be an elected representative for this area and a young thug like that will not deter me from my work.

“This type of person offers nothing to the community. There was a teenage girl with me helping me canvass. This person thinks he’s being a big man by threatening us, but he’s the opposite. A coward is too good a word for him.

“The matter is now with the PSNI and for the safety of those with me I decided to finish canvassing for the evening after the incident. This, however, will not stop me from doing what I was democratically elected to do - to serve the community. I wish it to be known that the SDLP fought for civil rights and we will not let an incident like this keep us from helping the good people of Lurgan.”

It wasn’t the lads in balaclavas who kept us out last night, it was the football.

Tags: Dolores Kelly

This entry was posted on Thursday 28th May 2009 at 6:42 pm and is filed under Civil Rights, Elections, Europe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.