Voting concludes in Stormont election

Posted by Jim on March 3, 2017

The polls have closed in the Six County Assembly election with voter
participation reported to have substantially recovered from the record
low voter turnout in last year’s Assembly election.

The first seats are due to be declared on Friday afternoon, with some
counts expected to extend into Saturday.

The poll to the Stormont Assembly is the second in 10 months. It was
called after Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness quit the position of Deputy
First Minister in protest at the failure of DUP leader Arlene Foster to
step aside ahead of an inquiry into alleged corruption.

There were dozens of reports of polling stations with substantially
higher voter numbers than last year. While some appeared to have been
influenced by the controversial culling of the voter register by the
electoral authorities earlier this year, the general trend was up.

Turnout is understood to have ranged from over 80% in parts of Tyrone
and Fermanagh, where voter participation is traditionally high, to below
50% in parts of Belfast, where bouts of heavy rain appear to have taken
their toll.

Commentators have predicted overall turnout should reach 60%, a 6%
increase on last year’s election and could reach up to the 63% reached
in last year’s European referendum. The official turnout will not be
known until the counting process gets under way on Friday.

Five Assembly seats are up for grabs in 18 constituencies, with the
overall number returned falling from 108 to 90 as a consequence of the
implementation of previously agreed reform measures.

Most interest in this election is focussed on the key level of 30
assembly members which the DUP must retain in order to hold on to their
veto over political change under the 2006 St Andrews Agreement.

The Ulster Unionists and nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party
(SDLP), have presented themselves as an alternative cross-community
partnership to the outgoing SF/DUP coalition. However, they did not
field enough candidates to replace them.

Three weeks of talks have been set aside to allow attempts to restore
power-sharing between Sinn Fein and the DUP. If the three-week
post-election deadline passes, British Direct Ruler James Brokenshire is
legally obliged to call yet another election.

However, in similar situations in the past, the British government has
opted to unilaterally suspend the Assembly and reimpose full Direct Rule
from London while negotiations continued.

One issue in the forthcoming talks is likely to be Sinn Fein’s call for
the introduction of an Irish Language Act, which the DUP has vetoed and
vowed to oppose.

While this can be resolved by the British government introducing an
Act at Westminster during a period of Direct Rule, the biggest sticking
point in the talks is still likely to be the position of Arlene Foster,
who has vowed to return to office as First Minister regardless of Sinn
Fein’s insistence that she appoint a replacement during the corruption
inquiry, a process which could take up to a year.

Sinn Fein’s northern leader Michelle O’Neill, who has taken over the
position vacated by Martin McGuinness, was upbeat as she filled out her
ballot paper in her home village of Clonoe, County Tyrone.

“It’s great that so many people are coming out to vote,” she said. She
thanked everyone who voted for Sinn Fein. “What Sinn Fein wins in this
election will be a win for all and we will carry our mandate through to
the post election negotiations,” she added.