Jaysen De San Miguel elected new mayor of Bunbury

As voted in the 2021 local government elections on October 16, Jaysen De San Miguel received 19.87 per cent of the 32% total of votes returned.

His win marks a 103-vote difference to fellow candidate, Bunbury councillor Amanda Yip.

The Mail caught up with Cr Miguel after the election, who said he felt "incredibly proud" to be elected.

"I also feel incredibly privileged to have the support of my friends, family and council," Cr Miguel said.

"I'm very excited for what the future holds and for what we can achieve as a city."

Officially sworn in as Bunbury mayor at a special council meeting on October 18, Cr Miguel said his first actions would be touching base with all current and new councillors.

"One of the first things off the bat will be to try and build a strong relationship with the councillors in order to have a strong team going forward.

"Being the deputy mayor under Gary Brennan, I learnt a lot from his knowledge in local government and how to be an effective leader.

"My approach now is to try and get some runs on the board early and look to achieve some results and see some things happening before Christmas," Cr Miguel said.

At 30 years old, Cr Miguel is the youngest mayor to be elected in Bunbury.

He said although he was proud of that fact, he didn't think age should be an important factor when it came to being mayor.

"I'm certainly proud but I hope I'm not the youngest mayor for much longer," Cr Miguel said.

"I had young people talk to me during the election and say, 'Jaysen, I didn't realise I could do that'. So if being the youngest mayor creates a bit of an interest in younger people being interested in politics then that's great."

As a cricket player with the Bunbury Colts Cricket Club, Cr Miguel said the leaders he looked up to growing up were those from sports backgrounds.

"It sounds a bit cliché but when you're growing up as a kid you don't look up to politicians as leaders. I looked up to cricket players Don Bradman and Steve More," Cr Miguel said.

"I took inspiration from seeing people who just got things done; people who didn't just talk about things. In that sense sporting people are easy to relate to, these guys just got things done.

"That's what I want to really do, is just make sure that whatever we're doing, we're showing people that we're trying to do something good and that includes bringing the community along with you."

Cr Miguel said the 32% return was the usual average for the city, but that he wouldn't say yes to making voting in local government elections compulsory.

"If people don't want to vote, I'm not going to force them to. The question instead that should be asked is does the system need an over hall to update it, is there a better way to do it is the question. I'd love to see that investigated."