West Belfast is best served by a range of unionist candidates, not just one

In his letter published by this newspaper (‘The unionist parties rejected a plan for a single candidate to run in W Belfast,’ April 29, see link below), Mr RC says of unionist chances in the West Belfast constituency, “The strong feeling was that a united candidate could win a seat on first preference votes”.

People seem to have been misled by a story circulating in the Greater Shankill, and published by the Shankill Mirror, that at the last Assembly elections Frank McCoubrey came within 88 votes of taking the last seat in West Belfast.

This claim is simply based on dodgy research. The official record of the 2017 Assembly count, published by the Electoral Office (http://www.eoni.org.uk/Elections/Election-results-and-statistics/Election-results-and-statistics-2003-onwards/Elections-2017/NI-Assembly-Election-2017-Result-Sheets), shows that by the end of proceedings Mr.McCoubrey was over 1,300 votes behind the last person to be elected (Sinn Fein’s Pat Sheehan). The Ark website has also pointed out that at the time of Sheehan’s being declared elected, there was a Sinn Fein surplus of over 800 votes which was undistributed. That would have made the gap even wider.

A single unionist Assembly candidate in West Belfast would not receive any transfers, and some voters would not like the person selected and stay at home. The peculiarities of the PR system mean that the unionist vote is maximised by a range of unionist candidates presenting the electorate with sufficient choice to encourage them to come out and vote. This provides opportunities for transfers to whoever is most popular.

Dr Paul Kingsley, Belfast BT4

The unionist parties rejected a plan for a single candidate to run in W Belfast

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