Sinn Féin surge will make life uncomfortable for the DUP
Posted By: March 04, 2017
Much of Sinn Féin and Michelle O’Neill’s success can be attributed to Arlene Foster.
Much of Sinn Féin and Michelle O’Neill’s success can be attributed to Arlene Foster.
John Manley. Irish News. Saturday, March 4, 2017
We are in an era of political upsets, and while the Stormont election result isn’t on the same scale as President Trump’s victory or last June’s Brexit vote, the outcome defied most pollsters’ predictions.
Sinn Féin’s claims that Republicans had been re-energized by Michelle O’Neill’s appointment as the Northern leader were met with a degree of skepticism, while its grassroots’ sudden anger with DUP arrogance and intransigence appeared a little contrived. The loss of somebody of Martin McGuinness’s caliber was also expected to play out badly. But Sinn Féin has clearly tapped into something and single-handedly succeeded in reversing the decline in the ‘green bloc’ vote.
Ironically, much of the credit for its strong performance will not go to the party’s strategists but to DUP leader Arlene Foster, whose antagonism towards all things ‘radical republican’ mobilized nationalist voters in numbers not seen for well over a decade.
In terms of first preference votes, Sinn Féin almost matched Mrs. Foster’s party, with little over 1,000 votes separating the two. The DUP looked set to emerge as the largest party in the Assembly, but the gap between the two has been closed, giving a reinvigorated Sinn Féin a psychological advantage. The uncertainty and upheaval that Brexit is expected to bring can only help a party that has cross-Border harmonization as a core belief, while over the coming months and years the DUP’s anti-European dogmatism is bound to grate with its professed pro-business bent.
Despite the three months of unrelenting bad press and a campaign characterized by negativity, the DUP’s vote held up reasonably well, though the party is clearly uncomfortable with its Republican rival’s surge. Mrs. Foster’s party struggled to get to the necessary threshold of 30 MLAs to be able to deploy the petition of concern veto without the need for signatures from other parties but using such a tactic now will only serve to underline its expediency.
Arguably what stands out most from the result is the ineffectiveness of Stormont’s opposition. The Ulster Unionists, in particular, were gifted an opportunity to make gains against a discredited DUP, but its campaign’s mixed messages appear to have put voters off. Mike Nesbitt’s party’s first preference vote was up only marginally, suggesting that discontented moderate Unionists bypassed the UUP and migrated directly to Alliance.
Despite its young leader demonstrating he’s one of The North’s more capable politicians, the SDLP has again failed to arrest its decline, even being superseded by Sinn Féin in South Down and losing stalwart Alex Attwood in West Belfast. There have been many post-election inquests for the SDLP over the past 15 years, and it’s hard to know where the party can find new ideas to match Sinn Féin’s ascendancy.
Written off a decade ago, Naomi Long’s party has again increased its share of the first preference vote and should maintain its eight MLAs in the assembly. Alliance even challenged for the fifth seat in South Down, a constituency where previously it failed to register significant support. The Greens’ vote also held up well in its heartlands of North Down and South Belfast, but like Alliance, it will find breaking out of the Belfast ‘doughnut’ difficult.
Much of Sinn Féin and Michelle O’Neill’s success can be attributed to Arlene Foster.
Picture by Arthur Allison/Pacemaker
John Manley. Irish News. Saturday, March 4, 2017
We are in an era of political upsets, and while the Stormont election result isn’t on the same scale as President Trump’s victory or last June’s Brexit vote, the outcome defied most pollsters’ predictions.
Sinn Féin’s claims that Republicans had been re-energized by Michelle O’Neill’s appointment as the Northern leader were met with a degree of skepticism, while its grassroots’ sudden anger with DUP arrogance and intransigence appeared a little contrived. The loss of somebody of Martin McGuinness’s caliber was also expected to play out badly. But Sinn Féin has clearly tapped into something and single-handedly succeeded in reversing the decline in the ‘green bloc’ vote.
Ironically, much of the credit for its strong performance will not go to the party’s strategists but to DUP leader Arlene Foster, whose antagonism towards all things ‘radical republican’ mobilized nationalist voters in numbers not seen for well over a decade.
In terms of first preference votes, Sinn Féin almost matched Mrs. Foster’s party, with little over 1,000 votes separating the two. The DUP looked set to emerge as the largest party in the Assembly, but the gap between the two has been closed, giving a reinvigorated Sinn Féin a psychological advantage. The uncertainty and upheaval that Brexit is expected to bring can only help a party that has cross-Border harmonization as a core belief, while over the coming months and years the DUP’s anti-European dogmatism is bound to grate with its professed pro-business bent.
Despite the three months of unrelenting bad press and a campaign characterized by negativity, the DUP’s vote held up reasonably well, though the party is clearly uncomfortable with its Republican rival’s surge. Mrs. Foster’s party struggled to get to the necessary threshold of 30 MLAs to be able to deploy the petition of concern veto without the need for signatures from other parties but using such a tactic now will only serve to underline its expediency.
Arguably what stands out most from the result is the ineffectiveness of Stormont’s opposition. The Ulster Unionists, in particular, were gifted an opportunity to make gains against a discredited DUP, but its campaign’s mixed messages appear to have put voters off. Mike Nesbitt’s party’s first preference vote was up only marginally, suggesting that discontented moderate Unionists bypassed the UUP and migrated directly to Alliance.
Despite its young leader demonstrating he’s one of The North’s more capable politicians, the SDLP has again failed to arrest its decline, even being superseded by Sinn Féin in South Down and losing stalwart Alex Attwood in West Belfast. There have been many post-election inquests for the SDLP over the past 15 years, and it’s hard to know where the party can find new ideas to match Sinn Féin’s ascendancy.
Written off a decade ago, Naomi Long’s party has again increased its share of the first preference vote and should maintain its eight MLAs in the assembly. Alliance even challenged for the fifth seat in South Down, a constituency where previously it failed to register significant support. The Greens’ vote also held up well in its heartlands of North Down and South Belfast, but like Alliance, it will find breaking out of the Belfast ‘doughnut’ difficult.
