By Corey Everitt
Henty Ward candidate Shoheli Sunjida is appealing to the electoral officer to address vandalism after seven of her supporters had their campaign corflutes mysteriously taken, leaving her feeling ‘targeted’.
Just over a week into the council election campaign, the most contested seat of Henty Ward has seen the centre of Pakenham dotted with the posters of the five competing candidates.
In particular, candidates deploy their local supporters and friends to install a corflute sign on their property and candidate Shoheli Sunjida has done just that.
However, supporters have contacted her to say their respective corflutes have disappeared off their property.
Shoheli claims seven separate corflutes have been taken so far and has notified Cardinia Shire’s electoral officer.
“I’m very hardworking and this costs me money and time,” she said.
“One or two is fine, but seven is just too much.
“They need to be informed that this is happening, I’m being targeted and I’m not getting a fair chance and if anyone else is experiencing this it should be called out.”
Shoheli said this is not the first time as similar events occurred the first time she ran for the council in 2020.
She said this emphasised the need for more security cameras in Pakenham to combat vandalism, an issue much broader than this incident.
Corflutes tend to be targeted in council elections; this week Casey Council candidate Jamel Kaur Singh had one of her corflutes defaced by racist remarks.