Elections to Hartlepool Borough Council in the ceremonial county of County Durham in England were held on 2 May 2002. One third of the council was up for election and the council stayed under no overall control.[1] At the same time an election took place for a directly elected mayor, which was won by independent candidate Stuart Drummond.[2]
Five candidates stood in the election for mayor, one each from the three main political parties and two independents. The Labour candidate for mayor was Leo Gillen, a local businessman who had led the campaign in favour of introducing a directly elected mayor.[3] The Liberal Democrats selected the leader of the council since 2000, Arthur Preece, as their candidate for mayor, while the Conservatives chose councillor Stephen Close.[4] The first independent candidate, Stuart Drummond, was better known as H'Angus the Monkey the official mascot for the local football team Hartlepool United F.C.[2] [5] The other independent candidate was Ian Cameron, another local businessman.[6]
Drummond campaigned on a pledge to give free bananas to all school pupils under 11 in Hartlepool.[5] He received backing from the football club who paid his deposit[7] and he promised that he would attempt to keep a local sports centre open, improve sporting facilities, tackle crime[8] and reduce the number of councillors.[5] His candidacy began as something of a joke but became more serious as he attracted support during the campaign.[9]
A supplementary voting system was used in the mayoral election with second preferences being used if no candidate received over half of the vote.[10] A local bookmaker initially made Drummond a 100–1 outsider in the mayoral election but soon had to suspend betting after receiving a lot of bets from local people.[11]
Stuart Drummond won the mayoral election defeating the Labour candidate Leo Gillen on second preferences.[2] Drummond said that his victory was due to disillusionment with local politicians and said that he was serious about doing a good job for Hartlepool as mayor.[12] Local Member of Parliament Peter Mandelson praised Drummond on his victory and described him as being "very committed".[13] However other political opponents described the results as having made Hartlepool "a laughing stock".[12]
In the previous election in 2000 the Labour Party had lost control of the council which since then had been run by a coalition between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives.[14] Elections took place in 16 of the 17 wards with only Greatham ward not holding an election.[10] Most attention was on the mayoral election but there was a large swing of 14.2% to Labour in the council election. However they were only able to gain one seat in Seaton ward from the Conservatives.[15]
After the election, the composition of the council was: