Constituency profile

Newry & Armagh.

Newry & Armagh.

NATIONALIST BATTLEGROUND: This constituency shows how the SDLP grip has eased in strongly nationalist areas. Former deputy first minister Séamus Mallon used to top the poll here with nearly two quotas and was the MP for the best part of 20 years. Now the SDLP enters this election with just one seat, although it is hoping that transfers will help it to regain a second of the six seats.

Sinn Féin benefited from good vote-management and a little luck in 2003 and picked up three seats. This time, however, the party is fielding a ticket headed by new MP Conor Murphy and two newer faces following the de-selection of Davy Hyland and Pat O'Rawe. Hyland, who is now running as an independent, could cause Sinn Féin some problems in Newry, and it is anyone's guess how the final seat here will go.

Strangely, the nationalist dog-fight for the last seat could be decided not by nationalist voters at all, but by unionist transfers.

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In 2003, the surplus votes of UUP deputy leader Danny Kennedy were never distributed, nor was the tiny surplus of SDLP man Dominic Bradley. If Kennedy is elected early enough in the counting, the SDLP could benefit.

UNIONIST BATTLEGROUND: Here, too, the role of independents makes this constituency hard to call. Danny Kennedy seems assured of his seat, one of the Ulster Unionists' safest. However, the clarity ends there. Paul Berry is the outgoing DUP member, but he is running as an independent, having resigned from his party following allegations about his private life. Also chasing unionist votes is another independent in the person of victims campaigner William Frazer. He has contested elections before and never broken the 1,000 mark. The level of anti-St Andrews Agreement feeling among unionists is hard to estimate, but it seems a fair guess that Frazer's vote will go up, especially in the absence of any Robert McCartney-style anti-power-sharing candidate.

WILD CARD: Can Paul Berry survive without the slick DUP election machine and following the rumpus over newspaper allegations against him? Is Davy Hyland's vote a personal one or a Sinn Féin one or a mixture of both? Will Willie Frazer's expected rising tally affect the result or could Ulster Unionist transfers actually help the SDLP to regain some lost ground at republican expense? Nobody knows - and those who say they do are probably kidding.