People Before Profit candidate Eamonn McCann out on the hustings in Derry
AT the grand old age of 73, journalist and socialist Eamonn McCann knows this is probably his last chance of getting elected to the Assembly.
And The Irish Times believes McCann could come between the SDLP and Sinn Fein and take a seat in the Foyle constituency for the People Before Profit party.
The SDLP and Sinn Fein are both looking to take three seats.
Sinn Fein have parachuted Martin McGuinness into Foyle in the hope of pinching a seat off Colum Eastwood’s SDLP and be returned to the Assembly with Raymond McCartney and Maeve McLaughlin.
Eastwood is confident he, Mark H Durkan and Gerry Diver will retain the party’s three seats.
But Eamonn McCann has other ideas and he could give both parties a bloody nose and get elected to the Assembly after voting is counted following polling day this Thursday, May 5.
McCann first stood here for election in the civil rights days of 1969, winning almost 2,000 votes in a contest won by John Hume, and also stood in the last Assembly elections in 2011, taking 3,120 votes but narrowly failing to win the sixth seat.
“I think this is the first election in which I am actually enjoying the process. Our campaign is in good shape,” he tells Gerry Moriarty of The Irish Times.
McCann says the first remark he and his canvassers utter on the doorsteps is “we are neither orange nor green”.
He believes. that policy is gaining some traction. In one loyalist area a party canvasser was told by a woman “I will vote for you but don’t be seen talking to me”.
McCann thinks Sinn Féin has engaged in a “high-risk” strategy in bringing McGuinness back to Derry. “If the result is that one of the existing MLAs – Raymond McCartney, a former blanket man, for instance – loses their seat then there will be a steward’s inquiry.”
No doubt there is a lot at stake in Derry, and there could be a reckoning after polling day, particularly for the SDLP but maybe also for Sinn Féin.
McCann knows that this is his best chance. He’s not taking anything for granted, but thinks the SDLP will take a hit and that Foyle will pan out two Sinn Féin, two SDLP, one DUP and himself.
“I am bursting with excitement, with the possibility of at last getting up [to Stormont],” he says.
“The one pledge I can give is that if elected they will know I am there,” added McCann.
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