DUP braced to lose seats in Northern Ireland assembly elections

Northern Ireland’s largest political party is bracing itself to lose seats in this week’s assembly elections amid anger over its promotion of a botched green energy scheme that has cost the public half a billion pounds.

Democratic Unionist party (DUP) insiders fear it may have lost middle-class support to rival unionists over its promotion and defence of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), which enriched farmers and business owners but has cost the taxpayer upwards of £500m.

Its hardline pro-Brexit stance in a part of the UK that voted to stay in the EU may also cost it some votes, with voters reminded of the fact when details of its £425,000 funding of pro-leave advertising in the run-up to the UK-wide referendum were disclosed.

The election this Thursday was brought about when Sinn Féin, the DUP’s partner in government at Stormont, quit in protest at the handling of the energy scheme by the first minister, Arlene Foster. Less than a year since the last poll, the DUP, which polled 29% last May, expects to be pared back, with some saying it could even fall below the nationalist Sinn Féin, which won 25%.

“I think we will take hits in middle-class areas where there is anger over the RHI scheme and our defence of it. But I still think we will get ahead of Sinn Féin and return as the largest party,” a DUP source told the Guardian.

Although the posts of first minister and deputy first minister are on an equal footing in the power-sharing arrangement in Belfast, if Sinn Féin was returned as the largest party it would rank as a psychological blow to unionism.

The number of seats for the new assembly has been reduced from 108 to 90, with five seats up for grabs in each of the region’s 18 parliamentary constituencies in a single transferable vote system that ensures broad unionist and nationalist representation at Stormont.

Given the rancour between the DUP and Sinn Féin, the two major parties that are expected to come back as the main forces in the Stormont parliament, a new coalition may take weeks, or possibly months, to piece together.

The Northern Ireland secretary, James Brokenshire, has repeatedly vowed that there will be no return to direct rule from London if the two parties cannot work together, but the possibility remains open, although Sinn Féin has warned that any return to direct rule combined with a hard border post-Brexit would be hugely destabilising for the entire peace process.

The other battle will be to persuade voters to turn out at all. Opposition parties have made a pitch to the so-called “Awol electorate” who do not normally vote in local elections but took part in last June’s EU referendum.

Almost 90,000 extra voters went to the ballot box in the province for the Brexit poll, according to research carried out by the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Irish Studies. Dr Peter Shirlow, the director of the institute, said: “This signals that people are political and interested in issues such as Brexit but find the assembly as not motivating them to vote.”

Colum Eastwood, the leader of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour party, which has sat on the opposition benches for the last eight months of the Stormont parliament, appealed to voters to cast their ballot this time around.

The leader of the fourth largest party said: “After the long years of conflict in Northern Ireland I think many voters took a deep breath of relief and some took a break from engagement in our day-to-day politics. In this election though I think that break has to come to an end.”

In unionist Whitehead on the east Antrim coast, Davy Young said that even though he voted in the EU referendum he would not be going to the ballot box on Thursday.

The retired university administrator told the Guardian he would not vote “because devolution only makes things worse, by focusing Northern Ireland in on itself and providing greater opportunities for grievance-mongering and generally stewing in its own juice … Voting in elections to the ‘factory of grievances’ at Stormont makes no sense.”

In the republican heartland of West Belfast Colm O’Grady, a 37-year-old secondary school teacher, described himself as a “child of the ceasefire” who used to vote but had become disillusioned with Northern Irish politics.

He said: “Compared to the big issues of our time, and the biggest of all which was last year’s referendum on the European Union, the politics at Stormont for me are small-time and insular. The parties are reverting back to basic sectarian lines so voting is not attractive any more in local elections.”