Winter chill does little for voters’ optimism

It was a cruel winter’s day as Northern Ireland’s voters went to the polls to elect their next Assembly.

But now that the voting is over, there seems to be no great optimism that devolution would be removed from the cold storage it has been in since its suspension last year by the British government.

In East Belfast, the frostiness between unionists was in evidence outside Greenwood Primary School on the Upper Newtownards Road.

“I’ve voted Ulster Unionist all my life and I won’t be doing it again,” a man in his late sixties snapped at one of the Ulster Unionists’ election workers.”

In a reference to last week’s infamous ‘Fuss at the Bus’ between UUP and Democratic Unionist election candidates, he said: “What David Trimble did to Mr Paisley at the bus was an absolute disgrace.”

Democratic Unionist East Belfast candidate Harry Toan observed the scene but did not get drawn in, concentrating instead on the trickle of mostly elderly voters into the school hall.

“I’ve been up since the crack of dawn and I have been designated a number of polling stations.

“The response has been good. It’s been steady. It seems to be following the traditional voting patterns.

“We’re quite confident that we will get our vote out in East Belfast as well as all those people we have been converting to vote DUP.”

Outside the Holy Family Church in Newington in North Belfast, Sinn Fein’s two candidates Gerry Kelly and Kathy Stanton were joking with canvassers.

Three hundred yards down the Limestone Road, members of the Progressive Unionist Party were standing rather forlornly at the gates of their local polling station.

After casting his vote, Mr Kelly sympathised with the canvassing teams, stamping his feet.

“It’s not the weather to be doing this,” he admitted.

“We’re just touring the stations, trying to keep up the morale of the scores of people working for Sinn Fein in this constituency.

“It’s going to be a tight battle but we’re optimistic.”

His running mate Kathy Stanton was, however, detecting some voter confusion at some polling stations.

“There seems to be a problem with some voters, especially the elderly, about whether they still have a vote,” she noticed.

“Some people thought they had one and signed registration forms recently, not realising that those related to next year’s European Election.

“The other thing we are finding is that people have turned up with medical cards which are not acceptable forms of identification.

“There are also cases where people applied for voter ID and it just didn’t come through.”

In South Belfast, Monica McWilliams of the cross community Women’s Coalition was on a soup run for her constituency workers.

As she stood outside Rosetta Primary School in a waterproof anorak, she admitted to feeling exhausted.

“It’s been a long hard slog,” she confessed.

“The weather’s been really tough but the reception has been good.

“When you fight elections you tend to lose all track of what is going on in the world.

“I’ve knocked on 17,000 doors and we’ve pushed literature through tens of thousands of letterboxes over the past four weeks and it’s got to the point where there could have been a huge volcano and you wouldn’t have known it had erupted.

“At the minute we are just trying to get round the polling stations and make sure our election workers are warm.

“We are feeding them soup and sandwiches and in fact some of the other parties’ workers. That gives us a wee advantage. While they’re eating them, we go out and canvass.”

Ulster Unionist Michael McGimpsey was also at Rosetta as he did the first of his three circuits of polling stations.

The former Culture Minister, who was dressed sombrely in a heavy dark blue overcoat and cap, observed: “The voting patterns seem to be pretty much what you’d expect.

“There was an initial burst in the morning from people on their way to work, then a steady trickle, another burst at lunchtime, then a steady trickle and we expect a huge burst around teatime and through the evening.

“No doubt when I get home tonight, I’ll be exhausted. I’ll be cold and hungry and anxious to put my feet up.”

In North Down, nationalist SDLP candidate Liam Logan was hopeful about his prospects as he canvassed on Holywood’s Church Road.

“Our vote is coming out and we’re getting support from quarters where we never got support before,” he said.

“The finishing line is in sight and a lot of us are just glad to be getting there. We’re very hopeful.”

For some Assembly members, the election was not the only game in town.

Northern Ireland Unionist Party candidate Norman Boyd was canvassing in South Antrim but still confident that he would be able to watch tonight’s Champions League action involving Glasgow Rangers and Manchester United.

“I’m a lifelong supporter of both teams but will be watching the ‘Gers as they need a win.

“Some people are saying the games may keep people away from the polls but I see no evidence of that. People here value their vote and they use it.”