Northern Ireland Assembly Election

[Sibboleth]

Polling day is the 26th November 2003

I'm sure you all have opinions on this so feel free to voice them.

Resources:

The BBC has news, background etc. and will have the results as soon as they come in: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/northern_ireland/2001/ni_deadlock/default.stm

www.ark.ac.uk/elections/

www.sluggerotoole.com

www.politicsni.com

[English]

As much as it galls me to say this. I think the DUP will win the most seats. Either them or Sinn Fein. Northern Ireland seems to be getting ever more extreme. In 2001, both the moderate unionist and republican parties (UUP and SDLP) lost support to their extreme counterparts (DUP and SF). I see no reason for this to reverse.

[Sibboleth]

The first results are in: so far the DUP lead with 5 seats, followed by the UUP on 4 seats and Sinn Fein on 2 seats.

There are still over 100 seats as yet undeclared.

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The DUP and the Shinners have just picked up a seat each.

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DUP up to 7, SF and UUP on 4 and Mark Durkan has picked up the SDLP's first seat in Foyle.

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22 seats in and it looks as though SF and the DUP have surged.

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All first preferance seats have been decided.

33 out of 108 seats have declared:

DUP   15
UUP   10
SF      06
SDLP  01
Ind     01

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The DUP have narrowly won the first preferance vote, closely followed by SF and then the DUP.

However NI uses STV so it ain't over yet.

[Peter]

In my opinion the biggest party will be the DUP, Sinn Fein will also pick up seats but the UUP will still be second. By the looks of it the SDLP vote has collapsed and I think it is likely that their seats will fall away.

The effect of the DUP victory is likely to set the Peace Process to back before the Good Friday agreement. I suspect that a new agreement may be needed and a new set of elections before the Assembly is able to resume its powers.

Peter

[English]

It all looks very grim to me. The DUP are staunchly anti-agreement and consist entirely of unionist catholic hating bigots. Any hope of peace in NI definately died today. No wonder the SDLP vote has collapsed, I wouldn't be surprised if Sinn Fein becomes the 2nd party.

[Sibboleth]

95 out of 108:

DUP   26
UUP   24
SF      23
SDLP  16
APNI   04 (non-sectarian liberals)
Ind     01 (health concern)
PUP    01 (David Ervine. Pro-agreement ,working class, moderate unionist. Linked to UVF)

Some good news if the failure of extreme-right wing Tory M.P Andrew Hunter(standing for the DUP in Lagan Valley) to win a seat.

Oh and APNI leader David Ford squeaked back in. Phew!

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102 declared: DUP 28, UUP 25, SF 24, SDLP 18, APNI 4, PUP 1, UKUP 1, Ind 1

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All results are in:

DUP 30, UUP 27, SF 24, SDLP 18, APNI 6, Ind 1, PUP 1, UKUP 1

Alliance somehow managed to hold all 6 seats from 1998!

Great news!

[Peter]

Alliance somehow managed to hold all 6 seats from 1998!

Great news!

Unfortunately this is the only good news that has come out of the elections, and unfortunately I fear that those 6 Alliance will never take their seats without new elections. With the DUP holding more seats that than the UUP there will have to be more "Unionist for a day" tactics from the smaller parties to allow Trimble to resume his post as First Minister and this assumes that nut Jeffrey Donaldson stays in line.

The DUP will certainly never let Gerry Adams become Deputy 1st Minister and I doubt too many other Unionists would be happy with it. We are now set back to pre-Good Friday levels and I suspect it will be 5 years before an Assembly takes it seats

[Kevinstat]

I participated in the election prediction contest at http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/ .  I did pretty badly.  I was WAY too optimistic for the SDLP (I predicted a net gain of 2, when the real result was a net loss of 6), which I hoped would do well.  I think I was one seat off in 13 constituencies and only completely correct in 5.  Besides my way off predictions on the distribution of nationalist seats, I didn't do that badly.  I was one under for each of the main unionist parties and for Independents (the Independent win was a big surprise), one over for the Women's Coalition and a net two over for the nationalists.

Even though I didn't do well, it was fun to participate.  Northern Ireland's election system for Assembly elections is very interesting.

I wonder if the SDLP can recover from this poor showing.  At this point, it seems like there Westminster seat in Newry and Armagh seems in serious jeapardy.  I'm not sure about the other seats.

Sincerely,

Kevin Lamoreau

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If the SDLP can top the first preference votes in Foyle(actually Londonderry/Derry but unsuprisingly the boundry commision don't take sides. Foyle is the name of the river) and South Down without Hume and McGrady it means they should hold both Westminster seats fairly easily.
Newry and Armagh is a worry though. Mallon's majority is only 6% and if he retires... not good.

I think that this might, just might, give Trimble(a moderate) the excuse he needs to purge the party of the Jefferyites and then go after moderate, working class unionists(who usually stay away from the polls in droves). If he can pull it off the UUP might be able to take prize bastard Peter Robinson down in Belfast East. But they would need a high turnout.

Alliance did a lot better than expected(and on a low turnout too!) and might be able to start growing again.

The DUP may have dug their own grave(crosses fingers in hope) over this.
By attacking the UUP for failing to get a deal etc they now have to work really hard to get "re-negotiation"(fat chance of that happening) and if they fail(as is certain) they might get demolished by the UUP at the Westminster election.

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Best take on the election: www.portadownnews.com

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Donaldson along with two other UUP MLA's have left the Ulster Unionist Party.
It's expected that he will join the DUP