Northern Ireland Assembly elections May 2011

Politics & Elections
1

I looked for a thread here for the recent Stormont elections, but didn’t find one. Assuming my eyesight not even worse than I’d realised, is this another sign that politics in Northern Ireland is becoming “normal”?

Results:



DUP:          38
Sinn Féin:    29
UUP:          16
SDLP:         14
Alliance:      8
Green Party:   1
TUV:           1
Independent:   1
TOTAL:       108

I make that 56 “Unionist” MLAs (including the Independent), 43 “Nationalist” MLAs, and 9 “Other” MLAs.

Anyone got any comments/thoughts?

2

SDLP’s vote remains steady after their massive collapse but F looking like the true voice of NI nationalists.

3

I find it sad that the SDLP have been sidelined since peace broke out. I also find it sad that the Alliance Party aren’t a more significant grouping in NI.

4

I was idly musing on both these points earlier today. At least the APNI get one of the UUP’s ministerial slots, which has a sort of poetic justice to it.

The BBC’s coverage suggested that the UUP is becoming a regional party, which is an interesting development. I find it difficult to determine what the point of their existence is, which I suspect is the same problem that the bulk of the unionist electorate has had with them; lurching further into TUV territory is presumably indicative of that same quest for an identity.
In the meantime the DUP appears to be becoming… moderate?

And where is the Loyalist vote going? The PUP seems to have imploded.
Does that mean their vote was split, that it’s going elsewhere, that it’s becoming disengaged from the political system, or that “Loyalists” are becoming “Unionists” now?

I suppose it’s a good sign that NI politics is being baffling in entirely new ways…! And the dissidents seem to have left well alone; suggesting, I guess, that they’re either very short on resources, or that the backlash after the Kerr murder has shaken them.

At this rate of change, we’ll have the DUP voting for reunification in a border poll…

5

The Loyalist parties never seemed up to much imho, although I was fond of the late David Irvine. They never organized politically the way Republicans did and were essentially mouthpieces for their terrorist groups. With the Good Friday Agreement, and ceasefires they got some wind in their sales but they were only ever marginal parties by comparison with the main unionist groups. I imagine most of those loyalists who vote would be comfortable with a DUP or UUP representative on most issues.

The DUP do seem in some ways to be becoming more moderate. I suppose as national or political security issues recede (the dissidents notwithstanding) they have to get down to the task of governing the region and probably find that extremism doesn’t actually get the work of a modern government done all that effectively.