A Sinn Fein councillor was last night elected deputy Lord Mayor of Belfast City Council by a margin of one vote. An Ulster Unionist Party councillor was elected unopposed as Lord Mayor.
Ms Marie Moore, a Sinn Fein councillor in Belfast for 10 years, defeated Mr Wallace Brown, of the Ulster Unionist Party, for the post of deputy Lord Mayor in a recorded vote of the 51 councillors.
The SDLP, Alliance party and Sinn Fein combined to secure 26 votes against 25 from the unionist bloc on the council in favour of Mr Brown. Mr Robert Stoker, who has held the position of deputy Lord Mayor of Belfast for the past 12 months, was elected unopposed as Lord Mayor.
Mr Stoker, a representative for South Belfast, did not vote for Ms Moore. However, Ms Moore said she expected to work well with him, having previously worked alongside him at committee level within the council.
A representative for the Upper Falls area, she said she expected some difficulties during her term in office as elements within unionism would oppose her attendance at certain events.
"I know that it will not be easy as there are some things that people may not want me to attend, but I'm hoping that we'll be able to work those sort of situations out.
"I'm not there to disrupt, I'm there to try and heal and to make it easy for all of us to get together," she said.
Mr Stoker said he wanted Belfast to be "a city for people and a city of people" and paid tribute to the outgoing lord mayor, Dr David Alderdice, who had "worked to the bone" over the course of the year.
The Alliance party last night criticised the Democratic Unionist Party for its attack on the party for supporting a Sinn Fein candidate.
Mr Tom Campbell, Alliance councillor for North Belfast, accused the DUP of "double standards".
"It must be remembered that the DUP supported the PUP for lord mayor some years ago when, as the political party representing the UVF, it had not called a ceasefire.
"We did not support the representatives of paramilitaries for high office when acts of violence were being carried out. The ceasefires have, however, changed this," he said.