The contest for nationalist votes in Derry in the Assembly elections is a microcosm of the greater struggle between Sinn Féin and the SDLP throughout the North. It’s not far from being a life-or-death political battle.
Sinn Féin has thrown its biggest Northern gun, Martin McGuinness, into the Foyle constituency, a terrible blow to the SDLP which currently holds three seats to its rival’s two. The DUP has held the sixth seat here since 1998.
McGuinness has shifted from Mid-Ulster back to his home constituency to try to switch the arithmetic in Sinn Féin’s favour. There is a symbolism here, with McGuinness taking on the legacy of John Hume. If the SDLP loses control in Derry, what else might it lose?
On a changeable April evening, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood and a team of 15 supporters are canvassing through bouts of sun and hail in Danesfort, a mainly middle-class neighbourhood in Derry’s Shantallow. He and two running mates – Mark H Durkan and Gerard Diver – are competing to hold the party’s three seats.
Eastwood is a fairly laidback individual with an easy way about him. He is concealing it well but must be feeling the pressure. Having just turned 33, he is the North’s youngest party leader. His job in the longer term is to rebuild party fortunes but he must first ensure there is not a further slide.
The SDLP now holds 14 seats to Sinn Féin’s 29. It is vulnerable in a number of constituencies and could, on a bad day, see its seat number slip into single figures which could leave it no longer entitled to Northern Executive ministry.
Polluted
One of the first houses knocked on would not have cheered the SDLP troop. Peter McLoone is an angler who is very exercised about the nearby river Faughan, good for trout and salmon, but which he says is being polluted.
Eastwood says he is trying to do something about the matter but McLoone, a retired man, says he is gravitating towards voting for People Before Profit candidate Eamonn McCann, a socialist and writer (including for The Irish Times). "What I like about him," says McLoone, "is that he can be strident, but in an interesting way."
Things get better from here on for Eastwood. This seems like fairly solid SDLP territory and most houses pledge their vote to the party. One formidable grey-haired woman standing at her doorstep declares: “The SDLP certainly will have my vote and that of family. Colum’s a decent young lad; he’s doing something for Derry; he’s trying to get jobs.”
As for Sinn Féin and McGuinness? “I wouldn’t let them in my door. All mouth and no work.” .
Dodging another hail shower after the canvass, Eastwood says he believes “the people of Derry will come out and stand with us again”, and SDLP will hold its three seats.
He says if the SDLP is under threat it is more from McCann than the return of McGuinness to town.
More broadly, Eastwood acknowledges the challenges and dangers but says the SDLP’s ambition is to consolidate before growing.
“We are not going to change the world in one election but we are going to begin the fightback and I am not countenancing defeat,” he says, adding that he feels he has “more time on my hands” than other leaders, in a reference to McGuinness, who is almost twice his age.
Between canvassing and Deputy First Minister duties, the Sinn Féin man is taking a local briefing from colleagues in his party’s election office on Great James Street. He is running with colleagues Raymond McCartney and Maeve McLaughlin.
If there is a gamble in returning to Derry there is no evidence of it; McGuinness is calmness personified. But would it not be a psychological blow if Sinn Féin does not get the second seat?
“I don’t think so,” McGuinness says. “From our perspective on the other side of the election we know who the major influences on the Executive will be (Sinn Féin and DUP) and that will continue. For our part we are trying to win three seats . . . We will see where it goes.”
He says his return Foyleside “isn’t about damaging the SDLP”.
“Me coming back is about further gaining influence for Sinn Féin in the Derry city area...My sense of it is that there will always be an SDLP.”
Big poster
At Pennyburn, two People Before Profit supporters are putting up another big poster of McCann. The party is running three candidates in the elections and, at the least, believes it will win in West Belfast, where Gerry Carroll is the candidate, and in Derry through McCann.
“We’ll have the youth and energy of Carroll and the experience of McCann,” says one of the men.
McCann, in mock horror, recoils at this. “How dare they, I am fighting fit, rearing to go.”
It’s hard to credit but at 73 he’s the oldest of the 16 candidates in Foyle. He is in flying form, as he once again tries to win a seat in his native city. He first stood here for election in the civil rights days of 1969, winning almost 2,000 votes in a contest won by John Hume, and also stood in the last Assembly elections in 2011, taking 3,120 votes but narrowly failing to win the sixth seat.
“I think this is the first election in which I am actually enjoying the process. Our campaign is in good shape.”
McCann says the first remark he and his canvassers utter on the doorsteps is “we are neither orange nor green”.
He believes. that policy is gaining some traction. In one loyalist area a party canvasser was told by a woman “I will vote for you but don’t be seen talking to me”.
High-risk strategy
McCann thinks Sinn Féin has engaged in a “high-risk” strategy in bringing McGuinness back to Derry. “If the result is that one of the existing MLAs – Raymond McCartney, a former blanket man, for instance – loses their seat then there will be a steward’s inquiry.”
No doubt there is a lot at stake in Derry, and there could be a reckoning after polling day, particularly for the SDLP but maybe also for Sinn Féin.
McCann knows that this is his best chance. He’s not taking anything for granted, but thinks the SDLP will take a hit and that Foyle will pan out two Sinn Féin, two SDLP, one DUP and himself.
“I am bursting with excitement, with the possibility of at last getting up [to Stormont],” he says.
“The one pledge I can give is that if elected they will know I am there.”
