So the DUP reclaim their seat from ‘renegade’ Jim Allister. The Robinson/Dodds leadership surely have food for thought, but any attempt to ride back (further) on power sharing would not only be wrong but counter productive. They have had the upside on Sinn Fein over the past 2 years, so the fact that the anti Agreement vote is down from 1998 shouldn’t be forgotten.
The SDLP vote on firsts went up by 1/3 of a per cent. Sinn Fein’s went down by about the same. Maguinnis did well from transfers, but the unionist bloc was too solid (not surprisingly). The post mortems will start soon and there is a lot of food for thought for the nationalist parties too. More on that over the next few weeks.
According to the BBC the SF vote was down by 0.3%, not up. So it was a 0.3% swing to the SDLP. Not much, but it’s a start and hopefully a sign that the tide is now moving the other way.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8077438.stm
By: ciaran on June 11, 2009
at 5:43 pm
Ciaran, you are right. We were starting to believe the hype!
By: NBNW on June 15, 2009
at 12:45 pm