The election that never was
A collective sigh of relief at Stormont as the politicians can forget about doing battle with each other and go back to being best buddies on the Executive. Ian Paisley had vowed to stand again, but it will be interesting to see if that position changes now an election isn't due until 2009. The UUP can forget about those pact talks with the DUP and concentrate on putting their own house in order by changing their rickety constituency rules. The SDLP didn't appear overly enthusiastic about an election, but they may have performed better in Foyle and South Down under the current boundaries than under the ones due to be adopted next spring.
It's not only the politicians who are relieved. Here at the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ we were scratching our heads over how to cope with a campaign at short notice. We were gearing up for an overnight count, but hit an unusual snag. The studio which normally accommodates our election special was already booked out - to the Northern Ireland version of Sesame Street.
Personally I was quite looking forward to watching the Cookie Monster operate the swingometer, but others didn't seem too keen. Now we shall never know what this new departure in election programming might have looked like..
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It would have made an interesting change from the usual (political) muppets who frequent the studio at election time.
It would have been so good to have been able to get to say "One seat AH AH AH" as part of the election night broadcast.
A break in elections gives opportunity to an anti-agreement movement to build their organisation and for pro-agreement parties to prove their particular position. In this case time will be the teller.