The political parties which signed up to the Belfast Agreement and secured a 71 per cent "Yes" vote in the recent Northern Ireland referendum, will be given further encouragement and support by the findings of the latest Irish Times/MRBI opinion poll.
The parties favouring the Agreement receive 82 per cent of public support, in terms of voting intentions for the new Northern Ireland Assembly, compared to a combined 16 per cent for Dr Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party and Mr McCartney's UK Unionist Party, along with 2 per cent for "Others". The field work was conducted by telephone last Monday and Tuesday by the Harris Research Centre and there may be a 3 per cent (plus or minus) margin of error. The findings appear to bear out the results of an exit poll, conducted on referendum day by RTE, which showed very strong support within the unionist population for making the Assembly work, in the event of the referendum being carried.
In the light of recent political pressures, Mr David Trimble and the Ulster Unionist Party can take considerable comfort from the findings which show support for the party to be 33 per cent, up from 19 per cent in RTE's exit poll, last month. Should the voting intentions of those canvassed in this survey be replicated in the Assembly elections of June 25th, the Ulster Unionist Party would improve on its showing in both the Forum elections of May, 1996 and the local government elections of 1997.
By contrast, the political fortunes of the DUP and of the Rev Ian Paisley are under threat. Support for the DUP has continued to fall from a high of 19 per cent in the Forum elections of 1996, to 16 per cent in the local elections of last year and to 13 per cent in this opinion poll. Mr McCartney's UKUP has failed to retain the strong support it attracted during the referendum campaign and has fallen back to a level of 3 per cent. The figure compares with 4 per cent received in the Forum election and 1 per cent in the local elections.
Within the nationalist community, support for the SDLP is charted at a very comfortable 27 per cent, some six per cent higher than it achieved in recent elections. The response by the electorate would suggest the party, under the leadership of Mr John Hume and Mr Seamus Mallon, has captured most of the credit for the Belfast Agreement. Sinn Fein and Mr Gerry Adams are likely to be disappointed at a showing of 8 per cent, which would deny the party the prospect of a political breakthrough. However, past opinion polls have tended to underestimate the level of popular support for the party and Sinn Fein may perform significantly better on June 25th.
The opinion poll suggests that the Alliance Party, at 10 per cent, may have its best-ever election campaign on this occasion, and it hopes to hold a balance of power in the new Assembly. However, with three weeks to go to polling day and 28 per cent of those surveyed still undecided on their voting intentions, the election could still produce major surprises.