Analysis: There is hope for the SDLP after the local elections, but the UUP's future must be more problematic, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
Michael McGimpsey even at the best of times has a mournful countenance. He has good reason to be genuinely despondent these days but, politician to the last, he attempted to find some hope amid the electoral devastation that surrounds his Ulster Unionist Party.
McGimpsey set out as favourite to win the South Belfast Westminster seat for the Ulster Unionist Party but saw a clever campaign by Alasdair McDonnell steal it for the SDLP. Here, however, in the marbled splendour of Belfast City Hall yesterday there was consolation: he held on to his council seat in south Belfast.
But his brother Chris lost the Shankill Road seat that he had held since 1993. In 2001 Chris McGimpsey won comfortably with 1,500 votes; yesterday he could muster only 570. Compare this with Diane Dodds. Competing for the DUP in the same area she won her seat with more than 4,000 votes.
That was sufficient to ensure that Dodds brought her two DUP colleagues in the Court area on to the council with her. In fact, if the DUP had put up a fourth candidate it would have taken four seats in that ward.
Rather uncharacteristic bad judgment by the DUP, but the fact was that the party didn't anticipate just how well it would fare in the local elections.
It entered the elections with 131 seats compared to 154 for the UUP. When the counts at the 26 centres concluded yesterday it had taken 182 seats while the UUP was left with 115. The DUP vote was up by 8 percentage points; the UUP's down by five. The DUP gained 51 seats, the UUP lost 39.
Sinn Féin came into the election with 108 seats compared to the SDLP's 117. Now it has 126 compared to 101 for the SDLP. Sinn Féin's vote is up three percentage points while the SDLP's is down two. Sinn Féin gained 18 seats, the SDLP lost 16.
Alliance increased its representation from 28 to 30 seats, winning four on Belfast City Council and holding the moderating balance of power there between unionists and nationalists, which is important. The Greens taking three seats pointed to alternative political seeds very slowly taking root.
The trend throughout the election campaign remains the same: the DUP and Sinn Féin the chief forces now in Northern politics; the UUP badly wounded; the SDLP also taking hits but still standing.
One of the main differences between the SDLP and the UUP is that the nationalist party still has a leader, Mark Durkan, who met the new Northern Secretary Peter Hain at Stormont yesterday. Some commentators have stated that the three seats the SDLP won at Westminster and its local election showing are merely a "temporary reprieve" for the party.
But Durkan made the reasonable point again yesterday that the SDLP must not be written off. While its percentage vote in the local elections is down on 2001, the party held the 17 per cent vote which won it 18 seats in the 2003 Assembly elections.
Sinn Féin is still not getting the transfers it needs across the nationalist voting line. Its advance continues inexorably but at a slower pace than before, probably because of issues such as the murder of Robert McCartney and the Northern Bank robbery.
If the IRA truly does what Gerry Adams has asked it to do - go away - then Sinn Féin could be set for future electoral gains.
But the fact is that Durkan fought a good election with, for once, a strong electoral machine. He has emerged from this election as a more assured leader and has a reasonable platform to try to consolidate or improve on that position, and try to meet the challenge of Sinn Féin.
So there is hope for the SDLP, but the future of the UUP must be more problematic. It has lost a leader and has only one Westminster seat.
Ian Paisley claims that unionist unity will be achieved but largely through a rush of UUP defections to the DUP. Michael McGimpsey, however, insisted yesterday that the party can resist the DUP tide. "Unionists aren't prepared to put all their eggs into the one basket," he argued.
That will involve root-and-
branch changes at headquarters and officer level after the mistakes of this campaign - the clapped out double-decker bus and the slogan about only "decent people" voting for the UUP spring to mind here.
McGimpsey, who indicated he would not be a contender, said the UUP should wait until after the summer before deciding on Trimble's successor.
But beyond that neither McGimpsey nor anybody else in the UUP has any great ideas of how to retrieve the situation. He contends that regardless of what the IRA does, the DUP will never be able to deal with Sinn Féin, because its hardline grass roots won't allow any compromise and the IRA won't deliver sufficiently.
"The DUP won't be able to take the strain. The pendulum will swing back again," he says.