Foyle.
NATIONALIST BATTLEGROUND:The 2005 Westminster election seems to have proved a key point in the electoral history of Foyle. SDLP leader Mark Durkan beat off a stiff SF challenge from Mitchel McLaughlin by a more comfortable margin than most expected. The Sinn Féin man is fighting this time in South Antrim and the party ticket has a newer look. But there is a sense here that the share of the six seats will not change. That said, there is mention that SDLP man Pat Ramsey, recently intimidated from his home, could have to fight for his seat against party colleague Helen Quigley. Eamonn McCann's Socialist Environmental Alliance polled impressively here in 2003, but has slipped somewhat in the meantime.
UNIONIST BATTLEGROUND:There is a single unionist quota here and it is firmly retained by DUP man and policing board member Willie Hay. The Ulster Unionist have not fared well in Foyle and this time the party is running young party employee Peter Munce who hails from the neighbouring constituency. Victims campaigner Willie Frazer is running despite having his political base in south Armagh, 100 miles away. Such multi-candidacy can bring benefits or backfire badly. A city such as Derry, with its strong sense of identity, may not take too well to the outsiders.
WILDCARD:Peggy O'Hara's abstentionist campaign is the one truly unpredictable factor at play in Foyle. With the longer term political effects of the Sinn Féin policing policy change still to be fully ascertained, her performance will tell us much.
Her campaign is solidly associated with the hunger strikes of 1981 and still employs the "Smash Stormont" slogan associated with republican politics of that time. Whether the electorate in general, and the young generation in particular, will be attracted remains to be seen.
OUTGOING MEMBERS (6 seats)
(% of first preference vote; Quota =15%)
*Mark Durkan (SDLP)6,806 (16.7%)
*William Hay (DUP)6,101 (15.0%)
*Mitchel McLaughlin (SF)6,036 (14.8%)
* # Mary Nelis (SF)3,499 (8.6%)
Mary Bradley (SDLP)3,345 (8.2%)
Pat Ramsey (SDLP)2,826 (6.9%)
* also elected in 1998
# Mary Nelis retired in 2004 and was replaced by Raymond McCartney