Constituency Profile - BELFAST NORTH:IN THE last Assembly elections North Belfast broke down three seats each for unionists and nationalists – two DUP and one Ulster Unionist representative, two Sinn Féiners and one SDLP Assembly member. So, at a big mathematical push, this could be classified as a marginal constituency.
But really it’s for the DUP’s Nigel Dodds to lose. The Dodds couple – Nigel and Diane – suffered something of a crisis of confidence last year due to Diane’s poor performance in the European Parliament election, even though she managed to win the seat, coming in third under the quota in the three-seater behind Sinn Féin’s Bairbre de Brún and the Ulster Unionist Jim Nicholson. This was a far cry from Ian Paisley regularly and thunderously trooping home first.
And throughout the political upheaval of last year and early this year there was a large question mark over whether the DUP deputy leader would hold solid with Peter Robinson and do a deal on devolving policing and justice, or whether his Sinn Féin antipathy would compel him to side with the “rejectionists” in his own party.
In the end Dodds went for the deal which was critical in ensuring that Robinson could bring his frequently divided party over the line in accepting the Hillsborough Agreement. Still, Nigel has never been a deputy in the sense that Peter was a fully committed deputy to Ian Paisley.
His detachment led to people in political and press circles wondering did this Cambridge honours law graduate still have heart for the fight? But no, he’s still in the battle, still prepared to mix it in this tough constituency. Indeed, he was the lead man for the DUP in one of its election broadcasts this week, arguing that full devolution and powersharing was the only way forward.
He appears to be back on track. And perhaps, the pavement pounding in the weeks ahead will reinvigorate Dodds with a renewed interest in politics and in shaping the future of the DUP. After all, should Robinson decide to stand down in the next year or so, Dodds would be in line to succeed him as leader, although he could hardly be First Minister. That would require him vacating his Assembly seat if, as seems likely, he regains this North Belfast seat which he first won in 2001.
His main unionist rival is the Ulster Unionists-Conservatives candidate Fred Cobain, an Assembly member who on past performance appears unlikely to significantly eat into Dodds’s share of the unionist vote.
Sinn Féin junior minister Gerry Kelly, who is running here, certainly sees North Belfast as a marginal. Which was why he appealed to the SDLP and its candidate, Alban Maginness, to stand aside and give him a free run against Dodds. He argued that “winning this seat for nationalism for the first time in this constituency’s 125-year history would break the DUP veto on equality for all”.
New SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie has ruled out any pact with Sinn Féin whether in North Belfast, South Belfast or Fermanagh-South Tyrone because, she said, that would be to cave in to sectarianism.
Gerry Kelly nonetheless is hoping that North Belfast SDLP supporters will view him as having a realistic chance of unseating Dodds and thus rally to his cause. That is unlikely to happen in sufficient numbers. Alliance candidate Billy Webb is working to establish a minor foothold in the constituency.