Irish nationalist vote to be split

By Mike Heaney

Social Democratic and Labour Party leader John Hume has rejected Sinn Féin's proposal for an electoral pact in the upcoming Westminster elections.

Sinn Féin chairperson Mitchel McLaughlin reported in a recent article in the Irish News that the party wrote to the SDLP on December 16 asking its position on electoral pacts which could maximise nationalist representation from northern Ireland.

McLaughlin said that an agreement had the potential to win eight of 18 constituencies. However, Hume accused Sinn Féin of intending "to cast us aside" and claimed Republicans had "got it wrong" since the start of the Troubles. Hume accused Sinn Féin of misusing the votes it gained in elections the previous May.

Ever since Sinn Féin entered parliamentary races in 1982, the SDLP vote has declined. The Westminister elections -- due by May 30 at the latest -- could continue this process.

With no electoral agreement, the two parties are running separate campaigns. In Mid-Ulster and West Tyrone, the two seats where Sinn Féin wants an agreement most, Unionists have won previously because of the split nationalist vote. But recent boundary and demographic changes in Mid-Ulster mean there is still a chance that Sinn Féin candidate Martin McGuinness could take the seat.

The SDLP's Joe Hendron currently holds West Belfast, won from the Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams in 1992. On that occasion, the SDLP's vote fell and Adams' vote increased, but Hendron was pushed over the line by loyalists voting tactically to throw Adams out.

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