Southern Myopia Ignores Elections ?

national | politics / elections | opinion/analysis Saturday November 22, 2003 16:00 by Cllr Eoin O'Broin - Sinn Féin eoinobroin at hotmail dot com

Where is the Indymedia debate on next weeks Assembly elections

Despite being one of the most important northern elections for some time, the absence of real discussion on Indymedia about the forthcoming Assembly elections has been quite amazing. Has there been any feature pieces on the election during the last number of weeks? Appart from a couple of SF, SP and SEA postings has there been any substantial discussion or debate? Would a southern election equally fail to generate much coverage? Is there a partitionist mindset among regular Indymedia contributors?

In order to provoke a debate about the elections, likley outcomes and consequences for the peace process I have posted an interesting article by BBC correspondent Mark Davenport. While his views are often way off the mark, this piece has much merit.

Let the debate flow...

Election follows 'low-key' campaign

By Mark Devenport
BBC political editor

With just days remaining until voters go to the polls in the Assembly elections, we are fast approaching the point where the pundits should step to one side and let the people decide.
All predictions will soon be rendered meaningless by the real results.

Before then, there's still time to reflect on a relatively low-key campaign enlivened or soured - depending on your point of view - by some verbal fisticuffs outside Ulster Unionist headquarters.

Traditionally, Northern Ireland elections involve two quite separate campaigns: one fought between unionists and the other between nationalists.

Despite some attempts - principally by the SDLP - to deny this is the case this time around, this basic picture hasn't changed that much.

However, one senior Democratic Unionist politician gave me a different definition of the two campaigns the other day.

He claimed that the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP had both been waging an "air war", whereas his own party and Sinn Fein had been engaged in a "ground war".

This wasn't just a reference to UUP leader David Trimble's election helicopter.

All the main parties have demonstrated their strengths and weaknesses over recent weeks
Instead, it reflected the politician's belief that despite a low-key campaign, Sinn Fein party workers had been much thicker on the ground than the SDLP.

He also maintained that the DUP had mobilised more "ground troops" than their counterparts in the UUP.

Of course without dogging the canvassers' footsteps in every constituency, it's difficult to fully test the truth of this assertion, but it could be part of a worrying picture for the more moderate unionist and nationalist parties.

The Ulster Unionists may have benefited from Mr Trimble's instinctive ability to seize the moment, when he emerged from his headquarters to confront the DUP as they unveiled a billboard outside.

Although Mr Trimble may have lost some points with those middle class Ulster Unionists who don't like to see their leaders engaged in unseemly behaviour, he gained by scotching the DUP's attempt to portray him as cowering in his office and secured a television image of Ian Paisley looking nothing like the "Big Man" he once was.
The principal Ulster Unionist weakness, however, remains its bitter division over the Good Friday Agreement.

UUP candidates are engaged in fratricidal disputes in several different constituencies, and these disputes reflect not just the usual rivalry evident in multi-member seats but also the ideological division within the party.
For Mr Trimble, the lead story in his own constituency's Portadown Times can not have made pleasant reading.

It concerned bitter exchanges between his two fellow UUP candidates George Savage - who has been flirting with the sceptical wing of the party - and Trimble loyalist Sammy Gardiner.

Moreover, it's unprecedented for a party leader to be conducting a BBC election radio phone-in and to have to deal with difficult questions not just from the punters but also from one of his own senior candidates - the Lagan Valley MP, Jeffrey Donaldson.

The DUP have had a smoother run, hiding their internal differences fairly efficiently, although the candidacy of disaffected member Jack McKee may cost them in Antrim East.

However, the perceived weakness of their leader, Ian Paisley, and the gulf between his more fundamentalist approach and the pragmatism of the DUP's "young Turks" is ever more obvious.

Whilst the DUP has obviously decided it can get away with shielding its leader, his absence from studio debates has become ever more embarrassing as the campaign has drawn to a conclusion.
Whether this will remain merely a talking point for journalists or will have an impact on how people vote remains an open question.

Given the exaggerated nature of the reports of their death prior to this campaign, one has to give the SDLP credit for coming out fighting.
They have certainly put up a vigorous campaign with some imaginative approaches, colourful broadcasts and picture opportunities.

In the last few days, veterans John Hume and Seamus Mallon have rallied to the cause, perhaps making up to some extent for their absence as candidates.

However, there remains a nagging doubt that the SDLP tactics - influenced by advisors from England and the Irish Republic - may sit uncomfortably with its candidates and supporters.

The SDLP have so long been the "nice guys" of nationalism that their belated conversion to "attack politics" risks confusing the electorate.
For a party supposedly poised for a breakthrough, Sinn Fein have been remarkably quiet in recent weeks.

In part, this may have been accidental - Gerry Adams has been absent at crucial periods because of two family bereavements, the deaths of his father and his sister-in-law.

However, the low-key republican approach has also been deliberate, by and large.

Sinn Fein strategists know they stand virtually no chance of attracting unionist transfers, but they believe their candidates have now become more acceptable to traditional SDLP supporters.
With that in mind, we are witnessing a republican equivalent of "softly softly catchee monkey".

The Sinn Fein approach raises a fundamental question about the campaign, which is: "Does it matter at all?"

Most voters probably knew what they were going to do before the politicians unveiled their first billboard - republicans say that if we pundits focus on the campaign alone, we are missing the point.

They have been mounting their "ground war" on the voters' doorsteps for many months.

Indeed, they say Prime Minister Tony Blair may have done them a favour by delaying the poll and enabling Sinn Fein workers to get more of the party's voters back on the slimmed-down electoral register.

So the "air war" and the "ground war" are drawing to a close.

And with that, this pundit is going to sit back and wait for the fog of battle to clear.