East Antrim:6 seats
A UNIONIST heartland leavened slightly by the Alliance party, East Antrim is looking at the possibility of a nationalist seat.
If it happens the question is whether it will be a Sinn Féin or SDLP seat after just 45 votes separated the two at the Westminster elections last year.
A change in the electoral boundaries has resulted in the loss of part of Newtownabbey and unionist votes. Instead the constituency now extends into the Glens of Antrim and brings in Cushendun and Cushendall and is thus likely to favour a nationalist candidate. The changes represent not a major increase in voters but significant enough to make an impact if they come out to vote.
Sinn Féins candidate Oliver McMullan, a poll-topping councillor since 1993 and a Cushendall native with a high profile, netted 6.8 per cent of the vote in the 2010 British general election, 45 votes ahead of the SLDPs candidate Justin McCamphill, a member of the SDLP executive and its energy spokesman, who got 6.6 per cent of the vote. The electoral boundary changes increase the potential nationalist vote by just over 4 per cent.
And who will lose out should there be a nationalist gain? The DUP has three seats with heavy-hitting Minister for Finance Sammy Wilson leading a surprising four candidates in an election where they had almost 43 per cent of the vote in the 2007 elections.
One of their successful candidates George Dawson died shortly after that election and was replaced by Alastair Ross, who is running again, as is David Hilditch. Their youngest candidate is Gordon Lyons (25), who has worked in Wilson’s Larne constituency office and was the Minister’s director of elections for the Westminster elections last year.
The DUP are expected to hold onto their three seats and the pressure is most likely on the UUP. East Antrim is one of just three constituencies to elect two UUP MLAs in the last election.
Outgoing MLA Roy Beggs will run again while party colleagues Ken Robinson retires after 13 years as an MLA and the party will run Rodney McCune, a barrister who has been based in London and ran in the 2005 and 2010 general elections for the Ulster Conservatives and Unionists New Force candidate.
Ruth Wilson, one of two women candidates is the Jim Allister’s Traditional Unionist Voice representative and while she will not get elected, her transfers will be crucial.
The second woman running is Geraldine Mulvenna, one of two candidates for the Alliance party along with Stewart Dickson a Carrickfergus councillor and chairman of the party. Outgoing MLA and a former party leader Seán Neeson is retiring. Stewart Dickson is most favoured to keep the Alliance Seat.
East Antrim is one of the constituencies where the far-right British National Party is running a candidate. They have a support base in Larne but are unlikely to make an impact.
