Blair fails to rescue Trimble and now the SDLP may need a lifeline

FOGS of over-optimism had surrounded the peace process until the sequencing was stalled by David Trimble last week.

As those fogs now clear the contours of the electoral terrain are again visible and there have been some changes over the summer months.

When the already postponed Assembly elections were postponed again by Tony Blair last May the main factor weighing on his mind was the electoral fortunes of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and its leader David Trimble. The electoral scene in May didn't suit Trimble.

Tony Blair knew he was taking a gamble since there was no guarantee that it would be any better for Trimble in the autumn. That gamble hasn't paid off. Trimble's position has not been improved by the postponement and in fact may have been dramatically damaged by the events of last week.

However, a side effect of the Blair gamble has been the impact which the summer interval has had on the nationalist side of the electoral contest.

All the signs are that the delay in the election has clearly been to Sinn Féin's advantage and to the detriment of the SDLP.

Firstly, Sinn Féin can, with some justification, now claim a degree of credit for the fact that the summer marching season was the quietest in years.

A restoration of the Assembly and the Executive would also have enabled the restoration of the SDLP leader Mark Durkan to the post of Deputy First Minister. This would have positioned the SDLP as the leading nationalist party going into this election at least.

However, since early September, when the two governments renewed their efforts to restore the Assembly, they have focused almost exclusively on the UUP and Sinn Féin.

This was most obvious to the public when Gerry Adams and David Trimble were invited along to the Downing Street summit between Ahern and Blair. As result the positioning between the SDLP and Sinn Féin has been adjusted in Sinn Féin's favour.

Last week's stalling of the sequencing by David Trimble has also helped Sinn Féin to get on an election footing. It has made significant steps towards winding down its paramilitary wing and to restoring public confidence which had been shaken by a series of spying, arms importation and international terrorism allegations which culminated in the suspension of the Assembly in October, 2002. Now Sinn Féin can go to doors in the nationalist community using the line "nothing will ever be enough for the unionists".

In trying to come up with an analogy for the position of the SDLP in the last few weeks I found myself drawn to New Testament and, in particular, to the person of the prodigal son's brother.

When it first noticed the two governments, the UUP and Sinn Féin closeted away in the negotiations in which last week's sequence of events were choreographed, the SDLP might have been moved to ask one of the civil servants what was going on. The answer they got might well have been "your brother has come home, your father has killed the fatted calf".

We cannot be completely certain that Sinn Féin, long the prodigal son of Irish nationalism, has come home to stay, so all the effort and attention has been on the problem child in recent months.

The steps were being put in place and the day would not be long away when all could be glad that the republican movement, long lost to violence, had been found and restored to politics only.

However, the SDLP wore its anger on its sleeve and then decided to raise the profile of its exclusion by lashing out at the Irish Government in particular. While the volume and intensity of the SDLP's annoyance has to be seen in the context of their trenchant electoral battle with Sinn Féin for the leadership role in nationalist politics in Northern Ireland, it has actually become counter-productive. It reveals their insecurity.

IN the 2001 Westminster election, the SDLP came in behind Sinn Féin for the first time. Sinn Féin polled 21.7% of the first preference vote to the SDLP's 21%. On the same day in local elections in the North, Sinn Féin polled 20.7% to the SDLP's 19.4%.

Three years earlier, in the last Assembly election in 1998, the position had been reversed the SDLP polled 22.3% to Sinn Féin's 17.6%. In 1998 the SDLP won 24 seats and Sinn Féin 18 seats. Sinn Féin has the prospect of real seat gains in this election and that is why the competition is so intense.

Going into these elections, now fixed for November 26, the SDLP faces a number of hurdles. One of these is the absence of several high profile names from its ticket in key constituencies. John Hume, Bríd Rogers, Eddie McGrady and Seamus Mallon are retiring from the Assembly and this leaves SDLP seats vulnerable.

Wholesale retirements can of course be the opportunity for a new influx of party leadership blood. However, in the SDLP the transition has been neither planned nor gradual. The party is now passing the torch belatedly to a new generation of leadership which, with a few notable exceptions, has neither the experience nor revolutionary zeal of their predecessors.

The fact that this is the first electoral test for the SDLP's new leader, Mark Durkan, also doesn't help. There is a bit of the Enda Kenny about Mark Durkan. He was a respected Minister for Finance. He is personable, able, efficient and witty but he is never going to set the world alight.

Last weekend's Belfast Sunday Life newspaper reported that one of the SDLP's strategies to prevent Sinn Féin from winning a landslide in these elections was to run a campaign aimed at persuading Ulster Unionist Party voters to vote for the SDLP in transfers down the line.

In this country, we know how much every transfer matters even in the three, four and five-seaters which we have. The Northern Ireland election is fought in 18 six-seat constituencies and of course transfers will be important.

However, transfers across the community divide are rare enough in Northern Ireland. Firstly, as in the case here, many voters for larger parties are 'plumpers'. They vote 1, 2, and 3 down the party ticket and then stop. The SDLP also has no appeal for the considerable cohort of anti-Agreement or Agreement-sceptical UUP voters. The SDLP position will be worse than suspected if it is relying on the remaining UUP voters to forgo the options of transferring to the DUP, or loyalist or Alliance in order to shore it up in a battle with Sinn Féin.