The women in Bangor Market are as bold as brass. Not only do they want
photographs taken with the DUP's election entourage, they're propositioning
the Rev Ian Paisley.
"Do come to our D-Day tea dance," urges Grace, who is distributing leaflets
about the hooley. "I'll be first in the queue to twirl Ian around the
floor."
"Will there be any line-dancing?" enquires Peter Robinson. Paisley has
denounced line-dancing as sexually sinful. But Robinson is only joking. The
DUP are so successful and confident these days, they can poke fun at
themselves.
A symbol of that success is their candidate Jim Allister, favourite to top
the poll. A barrister, he's giving up a substantial six-figure salary for
the political arena.
But for all his intellectual ability, he needs to brush up on charm and
chat. "It's a super morning," is his standard salutation to voters. "Would
you like one of these?" he asks a man with a white stick, offering an
election leaflet. The man is blind.
It's the only awkward moment. Team DUP breeze through the market, all
shades, sharp suits and silver cuff-links. The shoppers are a mixed bunch.
Housewives rummaging through buckets of pigs' feet - three for £1.
Professional types buying fresh eggs and fish.
Everywhere, the DUP are greeted with out-stretched hands and friendly faces.
There isn't one dissenting voice. They seem on course to pull even further
ahead of the Ulster Unionists on Thursday.
Among ordinary Protestants, Paisley remains hugely popular. "I've been in
the European Parliament 25 years - a life sentence," he jokes. "I've no
regrets about protesting at the Pope's visit or anything else. I'd do it all
again - except I'd be even more wicked!"
Sinn Féin isn't saying so but the party could run the DUP close to top the
poll. Only 15,000 votes were in it at the Assembly election. Former Health
Minister Bairbre de Brun is every inch New Sinn Féin.
She boosts no military CV and sound-bites like "an Ireland of the equals"
trip off her tongue at a 'Women in Politics' debate in Belfast. She hails
from the Mitchel McLaughlin, not Martin McGuinness, charm school.
She has canvassed everywhere but is probably more at home with female
community activists than South Armagh farmers. Dublin-born, she became
involved in republicanism during the 1981 hunger-strike when teaching in
west Belfast. Unlike other prominent women members, she has grafted away for
years and isn't female window dressing.
Her austere image has softened during the campaign. Lilac, lemon and powder
pink suits have appeared. With remarkable honesty, she tells her audience
she has received financial help from Sinn Féin for clothes: "No-one ever
notices men wear grey suits all the time. But women are expected to wear
bright colours, to dress well and dress differently."
Her skills will be suited to Europe - she speaks German, French and Spanish.
Other talents have been necessary in the campaign. At an agricultural show,
she limbo danced, which involves bending backwards under a pole -
"Thankfully, I was wearing trousers". Naturally shy, she sometimes finds the
cameras intrusive. She's planning a break at a health farm before taking up
post in Brussels.
Martin Morgan has more street cred than your average SDLP politician. He
curses, suffered a broken arm when beaten by police while trying to end a
riot, and is a social worker in some of Belfast's poorest areas.
"I meet women who've had the shit knocked out of them by men and won't
report it to police. I understand why but it's infuriating the bastards get
away with it," he says.
He's an outspoken paramilitary critic, even though his brother Damien was
jailed for INLA-related offences. He knows he's up against it for the third
European seat but is hoping to squeeze out the UUP's bland Jim Nicholson.
"God loves a trier," he says as he canvasses in Belfast.
He tells a teenager the voting age should be lowered: "At 17, you can work,
get married and die for your country - though you'd be mad to. You should
also be able to vote."
Some observers claim he lacks gravitas. "If I hear I look young for my age
once more, I'll scream. I'm 37 for goodness sake." He's probably aged
several years from 18-hour days during the campaign. "Even at full stretch,
we can't begin to match Sinn Féin's machine," he admits.
He aims to get out the 40,000 SDLP voters who stayed at home last time. "My
dad didn't walk the streets, and get beaten off them during the civil
rights' campaign, for people to win the vote, then not use it," he tells a
shopper.
Lindsay Whitcroft is the Green Party candidate and former Ulster Farmers'
Union president, John Gilliland, is running as an independent. Journalist
and former civil rights' leader, Eamonn McCann, is standing for the
Socialist Environmental Alliance.
With film noir posters emblazoned with "Alternative Ulster" (from the Stiff
Little Fingers' hit), he's waging an eye-catching campaign. The Bogside
resident saunters into a Lisburn community hall to address two women and 80
young working-class Protestant men sporting ear-rings, tattoos and
baseball-caps. One is a former loyalist prisoner.
"McCann should be called goldenballs for it takes more than balls of steel
to come in here," one of the women declares. For two hours, he holds their
attention railing against the Iraq war, "Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern and that
whole parcel of rogues". He won't support any police force "even an all-Taig
one".
The gap between rich and poor is wider than ever, he says: "The Belfast
Agreement is divisive. Nationalists are so busy watching unionists like a
hawk, and unionists watching nationalists, no-one notices who is making the
real gains.
"We hear of the 'new prosperity' but how many working-class people can
aspire to £120,000 apartments on the Lagan and Foyle? Last year, Derry City
Council spent two hours discussing the Derry/Londonderry name change issue
and 15 minutes on job losses at Desmonds' factory."
McCann doesn't hide his past. He defends the Bloody Sunday Inquiry and civil
rights' movement and says he has personal friends who are dissident
republicans. His campaign is neither nationalist nor unionist. "It's about
giving a voice to the tens of thousands left behind by the political
process."
