People Before Profit is hoping to win its first ever Stormont seat today, most likely in the Sinn Fein heartland of West Belfast.
Gerry Carroll, a PBP member of Belfast city council, is expected to take a seat, likely at the expense of Sinn Fein, which finds its itself in the unlikely position of being the pro-government establishment party.
Mr Carroll, who has been heavily supported by Richard Boyd Barrett and other PBP TDs who travelled up to Belfast for the campaign, has heavily criticised Sinn Fein for austerity cuts. “We’re very much running on an anti-austerity platform after ten years of Sinn Fein rule,” Mr Carroll said yesterday, as he prepared to do one last canvass in his home ward of Black Mountain.
Sinn Fein’s government role has opened an opportunity for People Before Profit, which is throwing much of its resources into securing a seat for Mr Carroll.
As an all-Ireland party, PBP has followed Sinn Fein’s example of mutual north-south assistance at election time. Mr Carroll campaigned in Dublin for Bríd Smith and Gino Kenny, both of whom were elected to the Dail this year. Ms Smith and Mr Kenny travelled to Belfast with Mr Boyd Barrett several weeks ago and went door to door with Mr Carroll.
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Local issues, such as the closure of a children’s day care centre, have seen the PBP link up with Sinn Fein’s other big rival, the SDLP, in fighting Stormont austerity.
Alex Attwood, the sole SDLP MLA in West Belfast, is expected to be re-elected in a tight race. Both he and Mr Carroll have a major advantage: they can cross from the Falls Road into the loyalist Shankill Road, territory into which Sinn Fein dares not tread.
“I call it ‘shock and awe’,” Mr Attwood’s brother, Tim, a member of Belfast city council, said yesterday. “I knock on doors in the Shankill. People are shocked sometimes but then they are really grateful that I am willing to cross sectarian lines and seek their vote.”
The SDLP will be relying on transfers from an eclectic mix of the Workers party, the Alliance party and unionists. There is very little transfer to Mr Attwood from Sinn Fein, which runs highly successful transfer voting between its candidates.
A Sinn Fein West Belfast election official, who asked not to be named because he did not have party approval, said that the party welcomed the SDLP and PBP’s participation in West Belfast elections.
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“You journalists say every election, north and south, that Sinn Fein is in decline and every time our vote grows and grows. It will be the same thing in West Belfast this time as it was last time and the time before,” he said.