Northern Ireland Votes: Upper Bann

The last of Northern Ireland’s eighteen seats is Upper Bann. Upper Bann covers the area directly South of Lough Neagh the large freshwater lake just east of the middle of Northern Ireland (the largest lake in the British Isles). The seat is named after the River Bann, the longest in Northern Ireland, which flows through the seat. The seat covers Craigavon Urban Area, a series of towns which were intended to merge together into a city (which never happened) but which represents Northern Ireland’s third biggest urban area. Lurgan and Portadown are the biggest settlements in this area. It also covers Banbridge, a fairly moderately sized town. It is thus an urban area of medium sized towns. Upper Bann is one of the most sectarian areas of Northern Ireland. While the seat is mixed overall (55% Protestant to 43% Catholic) it is extremely segregated. For example in Lurgan the Northern half is almost entirely Catholic whereas the Southern half is almost entirely Protestant. A good example of the tensions in the area is the Drumcree conflict which used to flare up in this seat most years. At Westminster the seat is best known as the former seat of David Trimble, the UUP leader who led it into and through the Belfast Agreement, becoming the first First Minister. Trimble lost his seat when he was unseated by the DUP’s David Simpson in 2005. When the result was announced it was thought that maybe the UUP had been wiped out at Westminster, until it was revealed that Sylvia Hermon had held North Down. The UUP still do well here however.

One notable feature of Upper Bann is that, for a while, it had the biggest differential between Catholics in the census and actual Nationalist votes, which is especially surprising considering the segregation. The best explanations I have heard for this phenomenon is firstly that Catholics tactically voted for David Trimble for a long time and still continued voting UUP after (which would explain the strong UUP showings in this constituency) and the presence of a large number of Catholic policemen in Banbridge (when the state is paying your wages you typically become a bit more predisposed towards it).

Candidate	Party	Vote	Change
David Simpson	DUP	33.8%	-3.7%
Harry Hamilton	UUP/Con	25.7%	+0.1%
John O'Dowd	Sinn Fein	24.7%	+3.8%
Dolores Kelly	SDLP	12.7%	-0.2%
Brendan Heading	Alliance	3.0%	+0.8%

A slight fall in the DUP vote and a rise in the Sinn Fein vote may indicate either demographic shifts or an unwinding of tactical voting patterns (assuming that a fall in tactical voters from the UUP was accompanied by a swing in the Unionist community from DUP to UUP). Nonetheless the UCUNF alliance failed to make the progress they had hoped for in one of their targets, even with noted Freddie Mercury impersonator Harry Hamilton on the ballot. Since 2010 Hamilton has defected to the Alliance, like several other prominent UCUNF candidates in 2010.

MLA	Party	First Pref	Round Elected
John O'Dowd	Sinn Fein	18.0%	1
David Simpson	DUP	15.9%	1
Sam Gardiner	UUP	12.0%	9
Dolores Kelly	SDLP	10.9%	8
Stephen Moutray	DUP	8.5%	11
George Savage	UUP	5.1%	12
Sydney Anderson	DUP	N/A	N/A

Best Losers	Party	First Pref	Round Eliminated
Dessie Ward	Sinn Fein	7.3%	12
John McCrum	DUP	6.9%	10
Arnold Hatch	UUP	4.2%	8
David Calvert	Independent	3.1%	7
Helen Corry	Green Party	2.7%	7
Sheila McQuaid	Alliance	1.9%	5
Patrick McAleenan	SDLP	1.8%	4

Overall Summary

Party	Vote	Seats
DUP	31.4%	2
Sinn Fein	25.3%	1
UUP	21.3%	2
SDLP	12.7%	1
Green Party	2.7%	0
Alliance	1.9%	0

Two seats in a row where parties lose out on seats through poor STV tactics with, this time, bad ‘balancing’ being at fault. In STV it is important to maintain as much equality between candidates as possible, and to make sure voters preference all your candidates. If you have large differentials between candidates one may be eliminated early on, or you may have a situation where votes do not transfer right. Of John O’Dowd’s massive 1,606 vote surplus, for example, 22.7% did not go to his running mate, Dessie Ward. In fact I find this result rather odd as Sinn Fein generally demonstrates superior vote management and balancing when compared to other parties. Nonetheless, the long and short of the result is that the UUP hold 2 seats whereas Sinn Fein only hold one despite Sinn Fein getting 4% more first preference votes. It is results like these which lead some to argue that STV is not a proportional system (I prefer to call it a quasi-proportional system). What’s more the DUP should have really taken the seat over the UUP as well. UUP MLA George Savage actually came eighth in terms of popular vote.

The win cannot be put down fully to balancing issues however, as the Unionist community in the seat is larger than the Nationalist community anyway, and so votes flowed from DUP to UUP but there could have been a third DUP seat here if they’d balanced better too.

Besides poor balancing it is also notable that the nationalist (and particularly the Sinn Fein vote) is much stronger here than in Westminster elections which is likely a function of tactical voting in Westminster elections (as there is much less reason and possibility to tactically vote under STV).

The Incumbents

John O’Dowd (Sinn Fein) is, due to balancing issues, this seat’s sole Sinn Fein MLA. He has previously been a leader of the Sinn Fein assembly team and is a member of the party executive. O’Dowd gained plaudits in 2009 for referring to the dissident Republicans of the Continuity IRA, who killed a police constable, as ‘murderers’, a solid demonstration of just how far Sinn Fein has come. I suspect O’Dowd’s vote will fall this year as Sinn Fein attempts to balance better in hope of getting a second Assembly MLA elected, but he should still be safe.

David Simpson (DUP) has resigned from Stormont in order to concentrate on being this seat’s MP and has been replaced with Sydney Anderson. Anderson is a councillor in Craigavon (specifically in Portadown) and a former Mayor and Deputy Mayor on the council. The DUP is running a tight two candidate strategy here and based on recent performance they should be able to secure both seats. Anderson should be fine.

Sam Gardiner (UUP) is a local figure of substantial standing. He was elected to what was then Lurgan borough council in 1968, at the age of 23, becoming Ulster’s youngest mayor in 1968. He then served as mayor on Craigavon council (which replaced Lurgan) three times. He did substantial voluntary work at the Maze Prison, for which he was awarded a MBE, is a former High Sheriff of County Armagh, Chairman of the Board of Governors of a local school, Past President of a local cricket club, a former Chairman of the Lurgan based Glenavon FC as well as a member of a variety of other organisations. He also apparently keeps koi carp in his spare time! He is a former UUP chief whip and a former spokesperson on the environment. He was elected to the Assembly in 2003. Despite the fact that he will be 71 at the time of the Assembly election Gardiner has seemingly decided to keep giving this politician lark a go, and has been selected to fight this constituency once again. I find it difficult to imagine such an involved local figure not winning re-election.

Dolores Kelly (SDLP) was elected on Craigavon Council in 1993, and served as the council’s first Nationalist Mayor in 1999. At a Northern Ireland level she mostly appears to be a low profile politician, but the SDLP vote here is almost enough to reach a single quota on their own, so assuming the party doesn’t do something silly like nominate too many candidates she should be able to hold her seat, assuming she runs again.

Stephen Moutray (DUP) has been a councillor in Lurgan since 2001, and a MLA since 2003. Moutray is a businessman who has lived in Lurgan all his life. He is the current local Mayor and sits on all the major council committees. With a solid political base in Lurgan and a decent DUP vote in this seat Moutray can be fairly confident of re-election.

George Savage (UUP) has a history of interesting Assembly campaigns. He got 1.3% of the vote in 1998 but then received 1,712 votes when David Trimble was elected and another 2,565 votes when Sam Gardiner was eliminated to win victory. He was then beaten out by Gardener in 2003, losing his seat. He was re-elected in 2007 after Trimble had stood down, this time from 8^th in the popular vote on just 5.1% of the vote, by a combination of poor balancing from Sinn Fein and the DUP (as I covered above) and preferences from his eliminated running mate Arnold Hatch. His re-election prospects would have been nail-biting but seemingly he has decided to stand down.

The Challengers

There is really one seat in danger: George Savage’s open UUP seat. The UUP is standing three candidates in the seat; Sam Gardiner, Colin McCusker and Jo-Anne Dobson.

McCusker is the son of Harold McCusker, a UUP MP who was the party’s deputy leader. Harold was the MP for this seat and its predecessor, Armagh, from 1974 until 1990, when he sadly passed away. His son appears to be the mould of a traditional UUP politician having been a ‘dedicated’ member of the Loyal Orders for 20 years now. Dobson on the other hand is an up and coming young woman whose history is in PR. She was the Assistant Campaign Director for the MEP Jim Nicholson’s election campaign and a member of the Party Executive. Far be it for this blog to appear superficial but she is also not exactly an unattractive woman and thus I suspect maybe her campaign leaflets might attract more attention than would normally be the case. Dobson stood in a local by-election last year and won with 64% of the vote, though notably the DUP did not stand a candidate and there was only a 24% turnout. Dobson also seems to more au fait with Web 2.0, using facebook for her by-election campaign and using the blog available to all UUP candidates with some frequency. In Dobson and McCusker the UUP has two strong candidates, but who will appeal to different parts of the Unionist community – McCusker to older, more traditionalist UUP voters who remember his father with fondness, and Dobson to younger, more progressive, particularly female middle class voters.

I have no idea which of these is more likely to hold the seat, either could, and the party has selected capable candidates who will appeal to very different sorts of voters. They will benefit from the fact that the DUP is running only two candidates, and the larger size of the Unionist vote in general. In 2010 Unionists received 59.5% to 37.4% for Nationalists, whereas in 2007 they received 56% to 38.9%. We must remember that Northern Irish elections are not just between parties but also between communities and on these figures the Unionists are still closer to a fourth quota than the Nationalists, though it is by no means assured. The Nationalist vote has been growing in the constituency, but it will have to grow by a fair amount for the Nationalists to be assured of a third quota here, though it may end in a Unionist/Nationalist fight out for the last seat.

Nonetheless, Sinn Fein would be fools not to go for a second seat in the constituency and so that is precisely what they are doing. They are running Johnny McGibbon as their second candidate. McGibbon is a prominent Sinn Fein activist who became Northern Ireland’s youngest councillor when he was co-opted onto Craigavon council in 2007. A talented young politician McGibbon is definitely one to watch.

Sinn Fein is sure to attempt to balance its vote better than in 2007, and in McGibbon they have a decent candidate. Also in the party’s favour is that the UUP has arguably overnominated. Seeking to broaden the party base they have selected three very different candidates who will appeal to different bases, but there is only really enough UUP votes here to justify two candidates. It is likely that two or three hundred votes will be lost to the UUP by poor preferencing.

Another issue is it remains to be seen who else will be nominated. The Alliance has a potential troublemaker in Harry Hamilton. If they nominate Hamilton, who was the UCUNF candidate here last year, they may be able to drag a large number of votes from the UUP’s more progressive wing. Hamilton would be a high-profile candidate who would hold great appeal for progressive-leaning Ulster Unionist voters, especially those upset at the current party leadership. The TUV have also not selected their candidate here but have a decent potential candidate in David Calvert, who ran here as an Independent Unionist in 2007, getting 3.1% of the vote. Calvert was a founding member of the DUP, and once deputy chairman. He left the party in 1993 but has remained prominent as a perennial independent candidate. He ran in 2010 for the TUV in the same by-election Jo-Anne Dobson ran in, coming second on 19.3% of the vote (though I underline that this is a council by-election, that the DUP did not stand and that there was a low turnout). Besides this one by-election TUV support has not yet been tested in this constituency and he may be able to pull off a surprise. I doubt it, but if both he and Hamilton run then the Protestant vote in the constituency will be divided, and thus much more likely to leak preferences.

If it is divided in this way then the comparably small number of nationalist candidates (likely to be just 3-5) will make vote management and candidate balancing much easier and allow for far superior vote transferring. If all this comes to pass McGibbon will be well placed to win a seat.

This is the last of the Northern Irish constituency previews. The plan is to concentrate on some other projects for a week or so, both personal and blog related, before coming back to start looking into the seats for the Scottish Parliamentary election. In the last week or so before the campaign I will come back to these seat previews and update them to reflect newer information (especially as, when I started this, only the UUP had released a full candidate list, and the DUP and Sinn Fein had released none at all).