SDLP SOUTH Down MP Eddie McGrady (74) will not stand in the next Westminster election expected to be held in early May.
The unexpected decision, announced last night, means the SDLP will most likely look to his constituency colleague Margaret Ritchie to replace him.
She is Minister of Social Development in the Stormont Executive and was elected party leader earlier this month at the SDLP annual conference. Mr McGrady’s decision, said to have been taken very recently, not to seek re-election may be linked to this.
It had been thought Mr McGrady would defend his seat while Ms Ritchie remained at Stormont. His decision to retire indicates Ms Ritchie could be about to reconsider her role. She is expected to make clear her position later today.
Mr McGrady won the South Down seat from the veteran Ulster Unionist Enoch Powell in 1987, having lost out to him at the previous three elections in 1979, 1983 and 1986.
South Down was then a marginal constituency and Mr McGrady took the seat in June 1987 with a majority of just 731 out of an electorate of nearly 72,000.
He has held the seat at the four subsequent Westminster elections. Thanks to consolidation and to boundary changes, he won the seat in 2005 with a majority of more than 9,000.
He first entered politics in 1961 when elected to Downpatrick Urban Council as an independent nationalist.
He was a member of the former National Democratic Party, a forerunner of the SDLP which he helped form in 1970, becoming its first chairman.
Following local government reform in 1973, he was elected to Down District Council and served as its chairman in 1974. He stepped down from the local council in 1989.
Mr McGrady served briefly as a minister in the short-lived power-sharing administration in 1974 established under the Sunningdale agreement.
Mr McGrady’s retirement announcement was made last night at a party meeting in his constituency.
“I have every confidence the party in selecting my replacement will choose wisely,” he said.
He added: “I know if SDLP leaders had not been there to challenge the British government to act in the interests of the Irish people, nationalists and unionists, and to demand justice and equality for all we would not have peace and no prospect of a better future.”