Comment

Northern Ireland election activity ramps up

With the Assembly officially dissolved, Northern Ireland is now well and truly in ‘election mode’. Strategic Communications Senior Consultant, Jack Gibson and Consultant, Michael Jardine provide an overview of the current position for the main political parties and consider the impact on planning and development.

The signs left by this cultural shift are plain to see. Posters are going up on lampposts and telegraph poles, gangs of canvassers are descending on unsuspecting neighbourhoods and some well-worn campaign lines have already been uttered by party leaders.

The DUP, which has been the largest party in the Assembly since 2003, looks like it may lose its lead in first preference votes, according to recent polling. The party has had two changes of leadership during the last year, and there is a sense that it has lost some of its confidence. This is best illustrated by the fact that it is running eight fewer candidates this year than it did in 2017.

Meanwhile, both the latest Belfast Telegraph/Lucid Talk and Irish News/University of Liverpool polls suggest Sinn Féin has largely maintained its level of support from the 2017 election. As such, it may be on track to overtake the DUP as the largest party, which would give it the right to nominate a First Minister. 

As a joint office it makes no practical difference which party gets to nominate a First Minister and which gets to nominate a deputy First Minister. However, the symbolic impact of Sinn Féin winning the top office could be very significant indeed. Questions remain as to whether the DUP would actually enter the Executive as the “junior” partner for the first time since power-sharing was established. If they don’t, it could leave Northern Ireland having to go without an Executive yet again, until a solution can be negotiated. 

    

Elsewhere, Alliance and TUV are both polling strongly but may struggle to convert this into additional Assembly seats on 5 May. Both are running many first-time candidates, with whom voters may be less familiar, and may be dependent on transfers from other parties to make gains in key seats. The UUP and SDLP, meanwhile, find their polling numbers looking much like their actual vote share did in 2017. Though both parties are, as usual, likely to benefit from strong transfer numbers, they will struggle to increase their seat count without a significant increase in first preference votes. 

We will be watching this with interest because of what this election will mean for the future of investment in the region, housing delivery and our ability to tackle climate change. 

Infrastructure 

For the planning and development community a key question is which party takes the infrastructure portfolio, under the complex D’hondt system, which allocates the choice of ministerial portfolio according to the number of seats each party holds. This can have a massive impact on individual projects – witness incumbent minister Nichola Mallon’s recent decision in relation to the arc-21 incinerator, just a day before the pre-election period began.

Perhaps more importantly, however, the next Infrastructure minister will face significant pressure to overhaul Northern Ireland’s planning system and departmental culture, which has come in for significant criticism recently in reports from both the NI Audit Office and the Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee.

Whoever is brave (or foolhardy!) enough to take on the portfolio will be given an enormous task to address the scathing criticism levelled at the planning system and put in place reforms to make it fit for purpose. Given this, we thought it would be a good idea to see what those likely to take on the role post-election would do if they were to get it.

We asked each of the infrastructure spokespeople from the five main Assembly parties what their key priorities would be if they end up with the ministerial brief.  The results are essential pieces of intelligence for anyone with a stake in planning and development in Northern Ireland. 

They show that there is a good understanding within the parties of the challenges facing Northern Ireland’s planning system – but also that their approaches and priorities in dealing with this may be very different indeed.

Watch out for these videos on our website and social media in the coming weeks. 

If you have any questions about the forthcoming Northern Ireland elections, or would like to learn more about our work in Northern Ireland please get in touch with our Strategic Communications team.  

5 April 2022