The SDLP must talk directly to Sinn Féin if it wishes to have an electoral pact with the party in the European Parliament election in Northern Ireland, the Sinn Féin candidate Ms Bairbre de Brún has insisted.
Speaking at the start of her party's European Parliament election campaign in the Waterfront Hall in Belfast yesterday, she said there was an "outside chance" that both she and the SDLP candidate, Mr Martin Morgan, would win seats in the three-seat constituency.
Such a result would deprive either the Ulster Unionist Party or the DUP of the single seats the parties have held since the first European Parliament election in Northern Ireland in 1979.
In the past the SLDP has rejected or shied away from electoral pacts with Sinn Féin although this time with Sinn Féin the main nationalist party in the North there could be electoral advantage to such an arrangement.
Unionists have also acknowledged that unionist apathy could result in the loss of a UUP or DUP seat this time. In such an eventuality the likely victim would be the Ulster Unionist candidate Mr Jim Nicholson, as the DUP, whose candidate is Mr Jim Allister, is now the dominant unionist party.
Accompanied by party president Mr Gerry Adams, Ms de Brún declined to invite Sinn Féin voters to give transfers to Mr Morgan. "Our focus in this election is to ask people to vote for Sinn Féin and if people want to transfer to the SDLP or any other party then they can do so," she said.
Current indications were that Mr Allister would be elected for the DUP and that she would be returned for Sinn Féin, and that there was an "outside chance of the third seat going to a non-unionist", she said. Sinn Féin was open to the idea of a pact, she added. Pressed if she would urge second transfers to go to Mr Morgan, she replied: "Parties who want us to have an electoral pact need to come and talk to us."
SDLP Assembly member Ms Patricia Lewsley said the "only pact the SDLP makes in this election is with the electorate. People know this is not simply about the prospect of two nationalist seats. It is also about the best prospects for the North in Europe," she added.
Ms de Brún said local issues were ones that people held dear to their hearts but that Sinn Féin viewed politics "within an all-Ireland agenda".
