Who will win the Palmerston North mayoralty?

The Palmerston North mayoral by-election has had some television coverage on One News recently. The by-election was prompted by the resignation of former mayor Jono Naylor when he became a National list MP.

Voting papers are sent out in the post from the 19th of January. Voting papers must be in the hands of the Council by 10 February. Preliminary results are announced that day, and the official declaration is made on 14 February. The election is carried out by Single Transferable Vote (STV).

There are nine candidates. The order of appearance on voting papers will be random.

Ross Barber
Vaughan Dennison
Martin Egan
Lew Findlay
Bruno Petrenas
Sue Pugmire
Grant Smith
Abi Symes
Tangi Utikere

My apologies, I see that the suggestion of this topic was already made by another ipredict user on 20 November of last year.

I can't see this having particularly high liquidity, then again you never know.