Leadership challenge exposes SDLP disarray

MARGARET RITCHIE FAILS TO WIN BACKING OF HER OWN ASSEMBLY MEMBERS | TALK OF THREE-WAY BATTLE AT THE TOP

» BY PEADAR WHELAN

Margaret Ritchie, Patsy McGlone and Conal McDevitt

» BY PEADAR WHELAN

IT WAS HARDLY a surprise when SDLP Deputy Leader Patsy McGlone announced via Twitter on Monday 1st August that he was to challenge Margaret Ritchie for the leadership of the SDLP.
There have been rumblings since May’s uninspiring election campaign saw the SDLP lose seats to Sinn Féin in the Assembly and fall further behind the republican party in local government.
The SDLP suffered setbacks in north and south Antrim as well as in Fermanagh, where party stalwart Tommy Gallagher lost his seat.
Ritchie’s leadership style, her media persona and her personality have all led people in the party to question the quality of the leadership she has given since taking the reins of the SDLP in 2010 from Mark Durkan.
But behind McGlone’s challenge lies the suspicion that he is smarting after being overlooked for the party’s only executive position in the wake of May’s elections.
The position of Environment Minister was given to west Belfast Assembly member Alex Attwood, a loyal ‘Ritchieite’. Attwood is the only member of the party to publicly or enthusiastically support Ritchie.
Of all the other SDLP members and elected representatives quizzed over their position, most have been either ‘unavailable’ or have refused to comment – a surely worrying sign for an incumbent leader.
SDLP MLA Conal McDevitt from south Belfast, who played an important role in Ritchie’s leadership campaign, was lukewarm in his support. He told BBC Radio’s ‘The Nolan Show’ that he would be “very happy for Margaret Ritchie to remain as leader of the SDLP”.
Even the future wannabe leaders of the SDLP in the party’s youth wing have thrown their weight firmly on the fence with Vice-Chair Seamus de Faoite declaring: “We are not going to endorse any candidate.”
In her campaign for the leadership in 2010 when she defeated Alasdair McDonnell, the youth wing openly supported Ritchie.
All of this would indicate that the SDLP is in a state of paralysis, not knowing which way to go or how to get there.
To complicate matters more, the defeated runner in the 2010 leadership dog-fight, Alasdair McDonnell, has hinted he may run again.
It’s anybody’s guess as to where a three-way split would leave the party.
Since Gerry Fitt, through to John Hume, the party was dominated by politicians who cut their political teeth in the halcyon days of the Civil Rights years.
Their reputations carried them through but the fact they never faced a real political challenge due to Sinn Féin’s abstentionist policies gave the SDLP an almost uncontested foothold in Northern politics.
With the rise in Sinn Féin and the party’s superior organisation and effectiveness, increasing its attraction to Northern nationalists, the SDLP has been exposed.
It is weak organisationally, its raison d’etre is more to do with opposing Sinn Féin than delivering a united Ireland or even its own policies and the electorate sees that. Its appeal has, to all intents and purposes, faded.
If he wins, can Patsy McGlone, a Mid-Ulster Assembly member, change the SDLP’s fortunes?
Or will the SDLP, like the old Nationalist Party of Eddie McAteeer that was itself eclipsed by the SDLP, just slip below the political waterline?