After 13 years and four terms the wily and tenacious Ulster Unionist Assembly member Fred Cobain lost a titanic battle in North Belfast, ceding the last seat in the constituency to youthful newcomer Paula Bradley of the DUP.
The DUP now has three seats in the constituency and the party’s MP Nigel Dodds described it as a “fantastic result”, confirming them as the biggest party in North Belfast.
Mr Dodds did not run for the assembly, adhering to the party’s policy of moving away from “double jobbing” between Westminster and Stormont. He described the Sinn Féin vote as “all over the place” and he insisted that it “wasn’t in with a prayer of a chance” of winning that seat.
He commiserated with Mr Cobain and said “the tide was against the UUP and he got caught up in that”. In the battle for the last seat, smart voting transfers by the DUP kept Ms Bradley ahead of the UUP candidate.
Transfers from independent unionist Raymond McCord, who campaigned against the UVF who killed his son Raymond in 1997, went across all parties. The largest number - 203 - went to the SDLP’s Alban Maginness, followed by 187 to Mr Cobain.
In the end it wasn’t enough and when Alliance candidate Billy Webb from Newtownabbey was excluded, Ms Bradley, from the same area, had enough to get elected without reaching the quota.
Both Sinn Féin and the DUP were targeting Mr Cobain’s seat in the run up to the election.
Sinn Féin's Gerry Kelly topped the poll in North Belfast coming in almost 1,500 votes ahead of the DUP’s Nelson McCausland, who took 5,200 votes. The DUP’s William Humphrey also retained his seat.
Mr Kelly said it was “all about vote management. I didn’t set out to top the poll.” In his acceptance speech he described North Belfast as a microcosm of what had happened across Northern Ireland in the Troubles. He said the result was “a chance for all of us to show political leadership” and work for the good of North Belfast.
His party colleague Caral Ni Chuilin retained her seat, coming in third. The voters had shown “confidence” in Sinn Féin and she was happy with the party’s share of the vote in a constituency which “is still unionist-dominated”, she said.
Mr Maginness, who came in fourth, had said earlier that the “sectarian imperative” remained the driving force in Northern Ireland voting behaviour despite claims of “normalisation”.
The SDLP assembly member dismissed claims that the North was now voting on “bread and butter” issues. “People may be talking about health and education but they’re not voting that way,” he said. “Tribal loyalty” still determined votes for those who exercised their franchise.
But almost half the electorate stayed at home with just 50.28 per cent turning out, a 10 per cent drop from 60.9 per cent in 2007. Mr Maginness believed it was “voter fatigue” that kept people at home, after a European election in 2009, a general election last year and the local and Assembly elections this year with the referendum on the alternative vote.
