East Derry: The SDLP won a small but sweet victory in East Derry when edging out Sinn Féin for third place.
There was never any doubt about where the seat was going: the DUP's Gregory Campbell easily beat his UUP rival David McClarty in this unionist citadel. But what little drama the campaign had was supplied by the sub-plot among the nationalist candidates.
A small group of SDLP workers cheered when the returning officer revealed that John Dallat had held off SF's Billy Leonard by 368 votes. There were even tears in the eyes of one, but the words of Dallat's election agent Eamon Mullan were bitter. "I hope that's the end of his [ Leonard's] political career," he said.
"Northern Ireland does not need people like him." Leonard is usually described as having a "colourful" background. A Protestant former lay-preacher and an ex-member of both the Orange Order and the RUC Reserve, he has come a long way in what he calls "the process of questioning the British small-u unionist identity into which I was born".
The process began in the late 1970s, and by the 1990s led him to become an SDLP councillor and Dallat's election agent. But it was his last move, to Sinn Féin in January 2004, that proved the most controversial.
Leonard conceded yesterday that at least two of his former SDLP colleagues, including Dallat, no longer speak to him. Dallat made no overt reference to Leonard in his address, although he pointedly thanked SDLP workers "who have stood by their principles during these difficult times".