Assembly hopefuls await election results

Northern Ireland Assembly Election hopefuls were today awaiting results across 18 constituencies.

With unionists and nationalists locked in a tight battle to emerge the largest party at Stormont, many candidates were preparing themselves for nail-biting contests.

A total of 108 Assembly members were due to be elected in the 18 six-seat constituencies.

Polls closed last night at around 10pm and early indications suggested that turn out was disappointing in unionist areas.

Lagan Valley, Strangford, East Antrim and other constituencies with a unionist majority were reporting a disappointing turn out of between 50% and 60%.

Nationalist parties were much happier, with border constituencies like Newry and Armagh expected to have a turnout of more than 70%.

David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists are engaged in a fierce battle with the Reverend Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists to be the largest unionist party.

Gerry Adams’s Sinn Féin was hoping that it would maintain and extend its lead as the most popular nationalist party over Mark Durkan’s SDLP.

Several smaller unionist, loyalist and cross-community parties were battling to hold on to Assembly seats.

There was some comfort last night for Mr Trimble as early indications from exit polls for RTE suggested that his party had a slight percentage advantage over the rival DUP.

The poll had the SDLP and Sinn Féin running neck and neck.

But the pollsters had only processed 900 of the 1,500 responses they had got from 90 polling stations across the 18 constituencies.

They had also not factored in results from North Belfast, West Belfast and East Antrim. Nor had they tabulated results obtained from people who cast their votes between 7pm and the close of polling at 10pm last night.