North local elections: Analysis The McCartney killing damaged the local Sinn Fein vote, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
Monica Digney must have entertained mixed emotions last night. She made a little bit of history yesterday by being elected Sinn Féin's first councillor on Ballymena Council, which recently made DUP leader Ian Paisley a freeman of the borough.
The DUP-dominated council has always been a bit of a roughhouse chamber with its few SDLP councillors very familiar with the fact that they are barely tolerated by some members of Dr Paisley's party.
Ms Digney was delighted with her victory but she must know what lies ahead for her, particularly as the DUP appeared set to increase its representation in Ballymena from 11 to 14 seats.
So, the trend of the DUP and Sinn Féin on an onward march forward, as witnessed in the Westminster results for Northern Ireland generally, is being replicated in the local election results. Again, similar to Westminster, the Ulster Unionist Party is taking the biggest hit with the SDLP also suffering.
The fact, however, that the elections to 582 seats on 26 local councils takes place under the proportional representation system should ensure that the UUP and SDLP will emerge from this more parochial battle with fewer bruises.
At the time of writing the UUP vote was down 5 per cent compared to a drop of 9 per cent in the general election. The SDLP vote was down 2 per cent compared to a drop of 3 per cent in the Westminster poll. The DUP was up 8 per cent compared to 11 per cent and Sinn Féin was on a 3 per cent rise, as it was in the general election.
As the counts closed last night more than 400 of the seats were filled. Barring recounts, all 582 councillors who will serve for the next four years should be known today.
In the last local elections the UUP won 154 seats - 23 more than the DUP - but by last night the DUP appeared virtually certain to hold the most council seats when counting is completed today. The disastrous impact for the UUP of this election was probably best reflected by the defeat of former Ulster Unionist MP and party grandee Ken Maginnis on Dungannon Council.
He took a calculated gamble in running in an area outside his own ward, seeking to regain a seat that the UUP lost last time.
In 2001 the SDLP won 117 seats compared to 108 for Sinn Féin. Here too Sinn Féin is about to become the lead nationalist party at council level.
But Sinn Féin failed to hold the seat vacated by Joe O'Donnell in the Short Strand area of east Belfast. It was apparent that in the Short Strand the murder of Robert McCartney was an important factor in Sinn Féin's Deborah Devenny suffering defeat by the Alliance Party candidate Maire Hendron.
So far this has been a good local election for Alliance. It won 28 seats in 2001 with 5 per cent of the vote and, with a similar vote, at the time of writing it seems set at the very least to consolidate that position. Its leader, David Ford, won a seat on Antrim Council, while in Belfast it is in a good position to win four or more seats, compared to the three it won in 2001.