Barely 23% of the electorate turned out to vote – hardly surprising since the election result was virtually a certainty, and the election received almost no publicity at all due to the Robinson affair. (NB the News Letter article gives a different turn-out, but if the correct one is used the turnout seems to be 23.1%)
The result was, however, as this blog anticipated – a clear victory for the UUP candidate. Jo-Anne Dobson took 63.9% of the vote for the UUP, followed by the TUV's David Calvert on 19.3%. So the TUV lost the seat, and the spirit, if not the word, of the deal agreed between the DUP and the TUV last August was shattered. Relations between the two parties will plummet to another low. Had the DUP known that Iris Robinson was going to have to resign from Castlereagh Borough Council, then they might have been keener on keeping the 'co-option' deal alive. But now, with the TUV looking for revenge – and with a TUV councillor, Charlie Tosh, on Castlereagh Council – there will be no co-option for Robinson's seat.
No conclusions can be drawn from the increased nationalist percentage (16.8%) compared with 2005 as a result of the extremely low turnout, but it is interesting to note that Sinn Féin increased its lead over the SDLP – taking 61% of the nationalist vote compared to 54% in 2005 (and 47% in 2001).
The full result of the by-election in Lurgan was:
Jo-Anne Dobson (UUP): 2,494 (63.9%)
David Calvert (TUV): 752 (19.2%)
Liam Mackle (SF): 401 (10.3%)
Patrick McDade (SDLP): 256 (6.6%)
Electorate: 16,930
Turnout: 23.1%
10 comments:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3623/3578557581_5e9d038654.jpg
Horseman, according to that article Tosh is no longer TUV but an independent unionist.
Kieron asks,
Horseman have you got the community background(good guys/badguys) split on this little corner of Norn Iron?
Anonymous at 14 January 2010 18:17,
That's interesting about Tosh. Castlereagh BC still have him listed as TUV: http://www.castlereagh.gov.uk/east1.asp
Kieron,
The community background of Lurgan DEA is 3,357 "Catholic" (16.55%); 16,402 "Protestant" (80.85%); 89 Other (0.44%); 438 None (2.16%) in the 2001 Census (according to Nicholas Whyte: http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/lgcraigavon.htm).
The division between 'good guys' and 'bad guys' was just demonstrated on Wednesday, was it not?
;-)
Kieron says,
Horseman, reassuring but suprising (given the very low turnout rate) correlation between the community background (CB) of 16.55% and the vote of 16.9%. It would be interesting, when you have a few days to spare, to see a league table, by Assembly vote or Westminster or DEA of the biggest gaps between the 2 figures.
Just where are those Uncle Tom hotspots? Though I appreciate of course there could be many other reasons for not voting with the green tribe or not voting at all or more Garden Centre Prods could be masking the Uncle Tomery in areas with strong correlations between CB and tribe.
Statiscitcally presumably it is possible to state the correlation? Has this been done?
Kieron says,
correction last message should have said "Garden Centre Prods (Unionist non voters) could be masking the Uncle Tomery in areas with strong correlations between CB and green tribal vote"
Yes Kieron, I agree it would be useful to have information on where exactly these scoundrels live put in the public domain. Perhaps then true Republicans could widen their offensive from blowing up Irish speaking, GAA supporting, Catholic police men, to dealing with these wretches as well.
Working out peoples adresses from statistical analyis of voter retrunsd could be quite a challenge and if you are a touch squeamish about such ananlysis then you only have yourself to blame as the clue to what is discussed here is in the name of the website.
Keep posting stuff like this i really like it
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