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The quiet councillor of local politics was heard loud and clear at the ballot box at last week’s local election as Newry City councillor Valerie Harte topped the poll in the Newry DEA with 2,085 first reference votes.
What was remarkable about Cllr Harte’s result was that she was just five votes short of doubling her 1,045 first preferences from 2019 while she also polled just short of 20% of the total Newry DEA vote of 10,623.
Sinn Féin stood four candidates in Newry in 2019 but only returned three with the inclusion of Independent candidate Gavin Malone impacting on their plans.
This time however, with Malone (and his 2200+ votes) not standing, Sinn Féin’s strategy played out perfectly.
Again, they ran four candidates but this time, with careful vote management, they got two candidates elected on the first count with Harte joined by Cathal King polling 1982 votes.
Their other two candidates, Aidan Mathers (1483 votes) and Geraldine Kearns (1259 votes), soon followed on the second count thanks to transfer from their running mates.
And they increased their vote too:
2019 - the turnout was 10,098 - four Sinn Féin candidates polled 4,443 first preference votes – just under 44% of the total first preference votes.
2023 - the turnout was 10,415 - four Sinn Féin candidates polled 6,809 first preference votes –
Just over 65% of the total first preference votes and an increase of 21% from 2019.
The SDLP will be glad they managed to hang on to their two seats with Cllr Michael Savage and first-time candidate Doire Finn on the sixth count following transfers and seeing off the expected challenge of the Alliance’s Helena Young.
Many, including this writer, saw Newry as an ‘almost certain’ seat for Alliance after Mrs Young was edged out for the last seat by the SDLP’s Gary Stokes in 2019 and her continued community involvement. However, while she increased the Alliance first preference votes from 721 in 2019 to 830 this time around, she started 105 votes behind Savage and 131 adrift of Finn. While the final two seats went down to the wire, the differences were too much ground to make up on transfers.
The SDLP will no doubt have concerns about the decrease in their first preference votes - 2,109 in 2014 (20.8%) reducing to 1,896 last week (17.8%) - but with a new young councillor in Finn and the experience of Savage they may feel they have a base to start from to try and increase their vote in 2027.
The answer as to what impact Aontú, dipping their toes into local council elections for the first time in Newry, would have on the election turned out to be little to none.
They polled just 318 votes, not far ahead of the UUP’s Andrew McCracken with 285 votes while Independent candidate Mariya Krupska, another newcomer, polled next with 209 votes. The Workers Party Nicola Grant picked up 104 votes in what was her first local government election having previously stood in last year’s Assembly election.
