NEWRY and Mourne District Council is an example of a partnership between opposing traditions that actually works. It is a boom area benefiting from huge financial packages from Europe and the US and building an increasingly positive image in spite of 27 years of intense division and violence.
Formerly an area with an immensely negative reputation, huge unemployment and a population harbouring feelings of being disadvantaged and neglected, the transformation is remarkable. Unemployment within the last four years alone has halved and new businesses are flooding in. Tourism figures have doubled. In the last five years tens of millions of pounds have helped regenerate the area and inspire the population with renewed pride. The newly reelected SDLP MP, Mr Seamus Mallon, whose constituency overlaps the council area, said the district was emerging from "economic hibernation".
Up to four years ago Newry and Mourne District Council meetings consisted of hours of bickering between political opponents. There had been what some described as an "unholy alliance" between independent councillors, unionists and Sinn Fein to keep the SDLP out of power. This caused ferocious arguments.
Today, the picture is vastly different. The SDLP and the Ulster Unionists have come to a partnership agreement rotating the chairmanship yearly.
Ulster Unionist councillor Mr Isaac Hanna is the current chairman. Both parties prefer to look to the future than remember the past. Mr Danny Kennedy, an Ulster Unionist councillor, describes the previous alliance with independents and Sinn Fein as a "mistake" and says it was done to "teach the SDLP a lesson" after the Anglo Irish Agreement in 1985. He claims the council has made huge strides in gaining inward investment and creating jobs.
While praising the council for the huge work revitalising the area, he adds: "Some people would go to any lengths to attract investment and paper over the cracks of sectarianism. But sectarianism is alive and well not only in the council area, but in the council itself."
One SDLP councillor, Mr John Fee, recalls the council's achievements over the past five years, which he attributes to the benefits of having a partnership between both sides and the hard work councillors put into selling the area.
"Newry and Mourne Council is to rural areas what Derry City Council would be to urban areas, emerging from economic deprivation and severe neglect. Newry and Mourne would be at the same level and would have on board all the political parties, the independents and all sections of the community," he says.
"There is a practical, working powersharing arrangement at local level. In terms of community relations, Newry and Mourne has a very substantial budget. In terms of the Leader programme for rural development in south Armagh and south Down, the local group has a budget of £1.1 million from the Leader programme, which is the largest running in the North of Ireland." He adds that the Delors peace fund had given the area over £2 million.
There is an abundance of new bodies set up specifically to target particular areas of need in the district. Enterprise Newry targets inward investment from America via a link to Pittsburgh. Initially, it was the primary founder of the Regeneration of South Armagh (ROSA), and the Regeneration of the Mournes Area (ROMA).
It is not just business that is booming. The south Armagh and south Down areas have a strong cultural base and superb scenery. The Mourne Mountains have always been popular with tourists, but south Armagh is becoming increasingly favoured.
Newry, boasts new hotels, new bars and nightclubs, new shopping complexes plus the regeneration of large portions of the more derelict parts of the town. The seafront at Warrenpoint in Co Down is getting a £6 million facelift and there is a variety of developments in south Armagh, including Jonesborough, Crossmaglen, Cullyhanna, and Newtownhamilton.
Despite the council's remarkable achievements, councillors are concerned about voter apathy in this election. All the main parties, SDLP, Unionist and Sinn Fein, are also concerned about the number of independent candidates standing. One concern is former council chairman, Mr Eugene Markey, who retired from politics four years ago but is standing again.
The Ulster Unionists is the second largest party on the council and is confident of maintaining that position. Mr Danny Kennedy voices concern that the only remaining unionist seat in Newry town may be lost in this election due to a massive exodus of Protestants. He is also concerned over an ageing. Protestant population in towns such as Bessbrook and Newtownhamilton. His party will be pushing for more power for local government.
From the Quaker village of Bessbrook in south Armagh, where Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick was killed in February, Mr Kennedy says the people were "very shocked indeed that the sniper had come to work in their village".
For Sinn Fein it is not all a rosy picture. The bread and butter issues are the most important. These include welfare rights, the drugs problem and the proposal to reduce the acute status of Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry.
A Sinn Fein councillor, Mr Brendan Curran, describes Newry council as "very bigoted and biased". "Despite all that they say that Newry is a power sharing council, it is not. It is an SDLP/Unionist run council ... We are a thorn in the side of the council because we continually highlight and lobby against the junkets. However on May 21st, the voters will decide."