It was hard to know who was looking more glum in the Magherafelt count centre – the SDLP or the UUP.
Foyle MP Colum Eastwood was not shy about admitting his party looked like it was in for a hammering, but UUP leader Doug Beattie, after a brief appearance in the vast Meadowbank sports arena, was nowhere to be found.
“I think he is hiding in his car,” one of his party colleagues let slip.
Last year’s Beattie Bounce – touted as reviving the UUP’s fortunes – was starting to look more like a dead cat bounce by Friday evening in Beattie’s first test at the ballot box in charge of his party.
On the first count in Upper Bann, the decorated former British army veteran who trades on his liberal credentials had taken 5,199 votes – some distance behind the 9,351 quota. And not massively ahead of the hardline Traditional Unionist Voice candidate Darrin Foster, who attracted the number one tick from 4,373 voters, either.
The DUP polled strongly in the constituency. Incumbent Jonathan Buckley on 8,869 first preferences and former economy minister Diane Dodds standing in the constituency for the first time on 6,548 but no one was returned at first count.
Observers in the airplane hangar-like arena were divided over whether Beattie could claw enough transfers to ride out the turbulence and make a safe landing, or whether he was going to plunge into the political wilderness.
Also in Upper Bann, the SDLP’s Delores Kelly was among a number of candidates in the party facing into a nail-biting weekend. With 3,645 first preferences, predictions are she could lose her seat.
Mr Eastwood admitted several of his charges were in “big trouble” with an anticipated nationalist swing towards Sinn Féin, including Ms Kelly, the party’s deputy leader and infrastructure minister Nichola Mallon in North Belfast and candidate Karen McKevitt in what was traditionally an SDLP stronghold in South Down.
“In the last couple of days the first minister issue really crystallised with people,” Mr Eastwood said.
“They just didn’t like being told by [DUP leader] Jeffrey Donaldson that a nationalist couldn’t be first minister. So, they went out and they voted for Sinn Féin in big numbers.”
A lot of SDLP voters “went that way”, he said.
Seats in the balance
In Foyle, the party’s cradle, another SDLP MLA Sinéad McLaughlin is facing into a fight to retain her place in Stormont. Mark H Durkan was returned on the first count, but ambitions to increase their two seats to three are in the balance.
“Sinn Féin polled better than a lot of people expected them to,” Mr Durkan said, the SDLP’s overall performance taking the shine from his own victory.
“Sadly, it is looking like a bad day for us and there is no way of sugar-coating it. It is very disappointing, from a party perspective but also in terms of how this place will work.
“We will have to see what we are going back to, if we are going back to anything.”
Despite the UUP’s performance elsewhere, ex-British army soldier Ryan McCready managed to almost double its first preferences in Foyle to the detriment of outgoing DUP MLA Gary Middleton whose support plunged.
But it was too early Friday evening to predict if either – or indeed any unionist – would be elected in the constituency.
Poll topper Sinn Féin’s Pádraig Delargy, a 26-year-old teacher who was clearly emotional as his 9,471 quota beating majority was announced, should bring his running mate Ciara Ferguson with him.
The question is where the transfers go for the fifth seat, with the SDLP, DUP and UUP all looking in the running.
In Mid Ulster, Sinn Féin’s would-be first minister Michelle O’Neill was easily returned on the first count, her surplus helping the party’s Emma Sheerin and Linda Dillon to an Assembly seat each.
Sinn Féin’s Conor Murphy and Cathal Boyle were both elected in Newry and Armagh, while party colleague Nicola Brogan – co-opted in 2020 after Catherine Kelly resigned amid controversy over a Covid business grant – was elected in West Tyrone.
