The Northern Assembly elections were a dull affair, but there is much about this to celebrate
THE PUBLISHING of the results of last weekend’s Northern Ireland Assembly Elections was not a media-friendly event, and certainly not for the Dublin media.
The fact the Assembly elections were held on the same days as both the council elections and the referendum on the alternative vote meant first constituency results due on the Friday evening did not emerge until the Saturday afternoon. The special Northern Ireland election programme broadcast by RTÉ on Friday afternoon had the dubious distinction of being the first ever results show to finish without broadcasting any results. By all accounts, however, the panel valiantly filled the time with quite a philosophical discussion on the state of Northern Ireland politics.
The slow pace of the count was not the only factor which left this election sounding and looking dull. Even when the results started flowing, there was little reason for excitement. There were of course occasional dramas in individual count centres as seats were filled, but the overall picture was still the same as it had been before the election.
While politics on the rest of the island has been convulsed in crisis and transformed in recent times, the Northern Ireland election has shown little or no change.
The Democratic Unionist Party is still the largest party in the Assembly, and the largest party in unionism. Their vote share barely moved: they got 29.9 per cent in the last Assembly elections and this time got 30.0 per cent. Sinn Féin’s situation remained similarly unchanged. They are still by far the largest party in nationalism, but failed to get any substantial bounce from their jump in our recent Dáil elections. Their vote did go up, but by just 0.8 per cent.
The only real story was the fact that neither the Ulster Unionist Party nor the SDLP made even a start on recovering from the last election. Both were down, in the SDLP’s case by just 1 per cent and in the UUP’s by 1.7 per cent.
The only party to experience a shift in support – which would register outside the margin of error if it were in an opinion poll – was the Alliance Party, which was up 2.5 per cent.
Movement of seats in the Assembly between the parties was also very minor. The DUP gained two seats, Sinn Féin gained one and the UUP lost two – one of which was to a UUP gene-pool Independent, David McClarty. Even the Alliance gained just one seat, despite their relatively impressive rise in vote share. The challenge from Jim Allister’s Traditional Unionist Party, which once threatened to make things interesting with the DUP, fizzled out.
Even between the two community blocs there was no shift. Unionists collectively made a gain of one seat and nationalists lost one, a movement which elections expert Nicholas Whyte attributes to boundary shifts in the four Antrim constituencies rather than any change in the breakdown of the electorate.
There was a little drama regarding the gender breakdown of the new Assembly, but even that was marginal. There are 20 female members in the new Assembly; there were 15 in the outgoing one. There had actually been 18 female members in the Assembly before that.
In addition to the dullness of the results, the count day itself lacked the colourful acrimony which characterised the coverage of so many previous Northern Ireland elections. One or other of the Paisleys was usually good for some count centre entertainment, but with Ian snr now retired and Ian jnr not contesting, even that bit of colour was lost.
Apart from a couple of isolated incidents there was none of the Bible-waving hymns celebrating electoral gains and none of the usual close physical confrontations between or within the competing sides.
The only scraps left for colour writers was Jim McAllister’s outburst attacking Peter Robinson for his reliance on “Sinn- Féin IRA”, and UUP leader Tom Elliott’s lashing out at what he called “ Sinn Féin scum” who were barracking him over his acceptance speech. Of course, there is much about this dullness to celebrate. It contrasts favourably with the bitterness and conflict which had once been a feature of political competition.
It could even be controversially argued the low turnout in this election was a good thing when one considers the kind of issues that used to mobilise Northern Ireland voters to the polls.
Turnout was down overall by about 7 per cent, and while that inevitably gives rise to concerns about marginalising young voters and disinterest in politics, the drop could be explained by the fact that more voters on both sides are content with the current arrangement.
As he took leave of the Northern Ireland peace process, George Mitchell said he hoped to return some day to see Northern Ireland politics being boring.
Electorally and otherwise, that politics has certainly calmed down. It operates in a peculiar political framework designed to meet the needs of its divided community, but within that context, Northern Ireland politics has stabilised.
The Northern Ireland system, centring as it does around the need to elect a first and deputy first minister and then to sustain cross-community consensus for major decisions, has generated a gravitational pull towards the larger party in each bloc. These parties have found a way to work together in relative harmony, and that situation doesn’t look like its going to change any time soon.
The line between stability and stagnation is a thin one, but for the moment we should be happy that Northern Ireland politics is less interesting.