Tyrone West - First Count
Quota: 5,618
5,992 Barry McElduff* (SF)
5,659 Pat Doherty* (SF)
5,057 Michaela Boyle (SF)
5,005 Thomas Buchanan* (DUP)
4,069 Ross Hussey (UUP)
4,063 Allan Bresland* (DUP)
3,362 Joe Byrne (SDLP)
3,016 Declan McAleer (SF)
1,141 Paddy McGowan (i)
1,100 Eugene McMenamin (i)
856 Eric Bullick (Alliance)
Doherty and McElduff elected.
Very poor result for the SDLP - but, those 2 independents are ex-SDLP, so they should transfer reasonably well to Byrne. That and the SF votes of McAleer should help.
Well, when you consider how poorly the SDLP candidates in
West Tyrone transferred to
each other in 2007, when the party ran
three of them when they had barely over a quota and had been dropping (they chose two candidates not including the incumbent MLA (McMenamin) who made a stink so they let him run as an SDLP candidate too (perhaps they figured that otherwise he would run as an independent like he is now)), I wouldn't be so sure about that. It would take a collective majority of them to put McAleer over Bryne for the fourth nationalist seat (I assume the Alliance vote would go more to Bryne than McAleer), but McGowan ran as as an "Independent Community" candidate back in 1998 so his SDLP-ties may be long gone (although that label might indicate that he is on the other side of the SDLP spectrum from Sinn Féin). Bryne and McGowan were both elected to the Forum in 1996 which wasn't long after the cease fire that "ended" the Troubles (when was that anyway), and a lot of Stoops back then might be Shinners now, and with animosity bettween McMenamin and his old party from 2007...
I imagine four nationalists will be elected (particularly if Bryne stays ahead of McAleer), but with that constituency you can hardly assume anything (that was the seat where independent Kieran Deeny topped the poll in 2003 on a "save the Omagh hospital" platform; he was reelected in 2004 on transfers from "everywhere" according to Nicholas Whyte).
