SINN FÉIN Assembly member Paul Maskey has been returned as the new MP for West Belfast, but on a record low turnout for a Northern Ireland parliamentary election.
Mr Maskey took the seat with 16,211 votes or 70.6 per cent of the poll. He was well ahead of his nearest rival, the SDLP Minister for the Environment Alex Attwood, who won 3,088 votes, 13.5 per cent of the poll.
There was no surprise at the result early yesterday, but eyebrows were raised at the low turnout. When Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams held the seat in the British general election last year he won 22,840 votes, which was just 111 votes short of the total valid poll of 22,951 votes in Thursday’s byelection.
The turnout was 37.53 per cent, the lowest ever for a Northern Ireland parliamentary election, compared with 54.9 per cent last year.
The People Before Profit candidate Gerry Carroll outpolled the three other candidates. Mr Carroll won 1,751 votes, compared to 1,393 for DUP candidate Brian Kingston, 386 votes for UUP candidate Bill Manwaring and 122 votes for Aaron McIntyre of Alliance.
The byelection was caused by Mr Adams standing down to contest and win a seat for Sinn Féin in Louth in the February general election. Mr Maskey is one of five Sinn Féin Assembly members in the six-seater West Belfast Assembly constituency. He is a brother of the Sinn Féin MLA for South Belfast, Alex Maskey.
Mr Maskey will continue to hold his Westminster and Assembly seats, according to a Sinn Féin spokesman, who said party policy was to end double-jobbing between Stormont and Westminster by 2015. Sinn Féin does not take its seats in the House of Commons.
Mr Maskey said he would strive to represent nationalists, republicans, unionists and loyalists in West Belfast.