Parties face wait for Euro results

Northern Ireland’s politicians were tonight preparing for a nail-biting European Parliament election count with the Ulster Unionists and the nationalist SDLP expected to fight it out for the final seat.

The results of yesterday’s election will not be known until Monday when counting begins.

However, as ballot papers were verified today across the 18 constituencies, it emerged that turnout was stronger in Westminster constituencies with nationalist MPs.

The Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists and Sinn Féin believed their candidates Jim Allister and Bairbre de Brun would capture the first two of Northern Ireland’s three European Parliament seats.

The battle for the final seat was expected to be between Ulster Unionist MEP Jim Nicholson and the SDLP’s Martin Morgan.

Over all turnout was estimated by the parties to be around 51%, which was typical for a European election in Northern Ireland but down on 1999 figure.

Tally men at the verification of ballots reported that Sinn Féin MP Martin McGuinness’s Mid Ulster constituency was reporting a 65.4% turnout while his Westminster colleague Michelle Gildernew’s Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency returned a 66% turnout.

By way of contrast, Unionist constituencies such as North Down and Strangford reported poor voter turnout, with 38% and 39.9% respectively.

A Sinn Féin source said: “The SDLP vote appears to be holding on last November’s Assembly election but there’s a great deal of interest in what is happening to the Ulster Unionist vote.

“It may be that Jim Nicholson may need transfers from (Independent candidate) John Gilliland to get him in.”

Mr Gilliland, a former Ulster Farmers’ Union leader, was hoping to secure votes from unionists and nationalists as well as the cross community Alliance Party.

Parties were speculating that his transfers under the proportional representation system could ultimately decide who wins the final seat.

Ulster Unionists said turnout appeared to be patchy while the Democratic Unionists were happy that their vote had turned out.

A senior DUP member reported: “In Belfast, we are doing very well and in some areas our vote was far outshining the UUP.”

Most parties predicted that Jim Allister would repeat his leader Mr Paisley’s feat of topping the poll in every election although the strong turnout in nationalist areas meant that they were not completely ruling out Sinn Féin’s chances.

SDLP party workers were satisfied that the party’s vote was holding its own and were particularly pleased with Martin Morgan’s performance in South Belfast and in their leader Mark Durkan’s Foyle constituency.

Socialist Environmental Alliance candidate Eamonn McCann and Green Party candidate Lindsay Whitcroft were lagging considerably behind other candidates, several parties reported.