IN many ways North Belfast is a political microcosm of Northern Ireland.
It's a constituency roughly evenly split along unionist/nationalist lines, where the DUP and Sinn Féin have been electorally dominant for the past two decades.
Stretching from the Crumlin Road to Whiteabbey, North Belfast includes many pockets of social deprivation, such as Ardoyne, Mount Vernon and the New Lodge.
It's a constituency that has changed over the decades and its demography continues to transform, as illustrated by recent election results.
The 2019 local government elections saw advances for the middle-ground with Alliance and the Greens polling well, while the same year's Westminster election delivered a nationalist MP in North Belfast for the first time in history.
John Finucane's victory over the Brexit cheerleader Nigel Dodds was achieved after the SDLP agreed to step aside, while the Ulster Unionists also provided the DUP with a free run, as it had done two years previously.
Those pacts are quickly forgotten with an assembly election looming and it's fair to say that relations between the two unionists parties have noticeably deteriorated of late amid continued protests against the protocol. Likewise, there's little love lost between Sinn Féin and the SDLP, with both parties potentially threatened by a surging Alliance Party.
Outgoing DUP MLAs Paula Bradley and William Humphrey have both stepped back from politics, meaning the party is running two candidates with no previous assembly experience.
However, former Belfast lord mayor Brian Kingston and Antrim and Newtownabbey councillor Phillip Brett both have strong public profiles. The latter's elder brother Gavin was 18 when he was shot dead by loyalists in 2001 at the gates of St Enda's Gaelic football club in Glengormley.
The UUP's is running former Progressive Unionist Party councillor Julie-Anne Corr-Johnston, who is arguably as far from her party's traditional besuited male candidates as it's possible to get.
She has energy and enthusiasm yet the UUP hasn't helped itself by standing aside for its bigger rival in past first past the post elections and it'll require a huge, unprecedented swing if the party is to regain a seat last held by Fred Cobain more than a decade ago.
The three main nationalist candidates all easily qualify for the 'big beast' label, with Sinn Féin's Gerry Kelly and Carál Ní Chuilín clocking up more than 35 years of Stormont service between them, including as part of the executive.
However, this veteran pair are arguably not as prominent as they once were, while Sinn Féin has been putting the more youthful John Finucane to the fore in its campaign – even though he's not running – in what appears to be an admission that many of its older candidates are a little stale.
That said, on a good day there's always two Sinn Féin quotas in North Belfast and any slippage would likely point to wider problems for the party across the north.
SDLP Infrastructure Minister Nichola Mallon is one of her party's most accomplished representatives and will no doubt benefit from the profile her executive role has given her. But along with the two Sinn Féin candidates, she'll be looking over her shoulder at Alliance’s Nuala McAllister, the city's former mayor, who is expected to be there or thereabouts in the latter stages of counting at least. She can expect plenty of transfers from the Green's deputy leader Mal O'Hara, who although expected to poll well, is unlikely to deliver his party what could potentially be its third MLA.
Candidates
Phillip Brett – DUP
Julie-Ann Corr-Johnston – UUP
Fiona Ferguson – People Before Profit
Billy Hutchinson – PUP
Gerry Kelly – Sinn Féin
Lily Kerr – Workers Party
Brian Kingston – DUP
Seán Mac NioCaill – Aontú
Nichola Mallon – SDLP
Nuala McAllister – Alliance
Ron McDowell – TUV
Carál Ní Chuilín – Sinn Féin
Mal O’Hara – Greens
Stafford Ward – Ind
