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Good observation from @brendanjharkin on my News Letter cover art from #ae16 and #ae17.

Saltamos por ti!

came to set up little for #AE16 #animeevolution this weekend!!! XD please come to my spot 213 stop just say hi *\(^o^)/*

Newton Emerson (Here: http://www.irishnews.com/opinion/columnists/2016/05/07/news/falling-turnout-is-becoming-a-nationalist-issue-511300/)

Newton Emerson wrote in the Sunday Times, April 24 2016: "No change is expected in the ranking of Stormont’s five main parties, but the May 5 election takes place against a background of significant change in how the assembly works. Last December’s Fresh Start agreement between Sinn Fein and the DUP reduced the number of executive departments from 12 to 9, and introduced a more coherent system of appointing ministers and devising a Programme for Government. It also introduced the first formal opposition mechanism at Stormont, and resolved welfare reform and associated budgetary disputes that had been deadlocked for three years. This was done by committing the next executive to cuts in benefits, corporation tax and public-sector employment." He continued: "With so much campaigning reticence still evident on big issues and institutional changes, this election remains overwhelmingly a tribal beauty contest along classic Northern Ireland lines. “For unionism, this election seems to be a referendum on Arlene Foster,” said blogger and academic David McCann. “In the nationalist camp, it seems to be who can out-left one another as parties battle over who can be more populist.” The near-presidential promotion of Foster is the defining feature of this election. The DUP is clearly delighted with its leader, who defected from the UUP in 2004, but some observers believe that she has squandered the goodwill of nationalists and moderate unionists in order to shore up her base. Alex Kane, a former UUP political consultant, said: “There had been some early speculation that Arlene Foster would change the face and image of the DUP and dip into both the UUP and that pool of non-voters who weren’t impressed with either Mike Nesbitt or Peter Robinson. “Yet she seems to have tacked to the DUP’s original, traditional grass roots. Some of them distrust her — these are people who have never even transferred to the UUP — and she needs a solid, almost old-fashioned election victory to silence and reassure them. She also needs to strengthen her hand for the changes she wants to make to the party.” Since 2014 the UUP has achieved a modest turnaround in local and Westminster elections, after 25 years of decline. Assumptions that it would be eclipsed permanently by the DUP have given way to a renewed unionist rivalry. “This is Mike Nesbitt’s most important election since he became leader — the end of the first electoral cycle of the two cycles he says are necessary to return the UUP to top-dog position,” Kane said. “Since there won’t be another election until 2019, it is vital he ends on a high note. But it’s hard to see the party getting more than 20 seats — up four since 2011 — leaving it well behind the DUP.” The DUP is currently on 38 seats, a lead so commanding it will be able to shrug off its expected two or three losses. Both main unionist parties would like to put their smaller competitors out of business. The TUV leader Jim Allister, whom Kane calls “the Garbo of the assembly”, has been the self-styled only opposition member since 2011 but his hardline party — briefly seen as a threat to the DUP — has peaked as a permanent one-man band. The loyalist PUP had hopes of returning to Stormont after a six-year absence but these seem to have faded. Kane is concerned that this could create a political vacuum filled by street disorder. Sinn Fein, currently on 29 seats, is tantalisingly close to the threshold of 30 that permits blocking anything in the assembly — although this “petition of concern” mechanism is marked for abolition in Fresh Start. But are the republican party’s years of inexorable growth over? “For the first time at assembly level, Sinn Fein is entering an election in which the most likely outcome will involve a loss of overall seats,” said Chris Donnelly, a former Sinn Fein candidate. “This election will likely confirm the trend of a declining nationalist turnout, which is likely to cost Sinn Fein at least one seat and also stymie the SDLP’s prospects for a revival under the new leadership of Colum Eastwood.” The stakes are especially high for Eastwood after Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness moved from Mid Ulster to tackle him head-on in Foyle. “The SDLP needs at least two success stories to give credence to the notion of being a party on the up,” said Donnelly. Between the two main blocs, Alliance needs to increase its eight seats to 11 to keep one ministry, on top of the justice post it holds under a separate 2010 deal. This will be a tall order, with loyalist hostility still lingering after the 2012-13 flag protests plus the retirement of its South Belfast poll-topper Anna Lo. In an ambitious move, Alliance is targeting three seats in East Belfast, where the protests against it were most violent. The DUP campaign here has been lacklustre after the retirement of Robinson, who is believed to be taking no role in the fiefdom he ran for 40 years. Candidate selection and discipline problems have been a feature of this campaign for the four largest parties, with particular problems for Sinn Fein and the SDLP in Fermanagh and Tyrone respectively. Some have said this indicates a normalisation of once tightly controlled Northern Ireland parties, but a DUP source pinned it firmly on the end of double jobbing, causing “desperate” behaviour by assembly members with no council seat to fall back on. The breakthrough story of the election could be People Before Profit, a front for the Socialist Workers party. Gerry Carroll, a west Belfast councillor, is expected to win its first assembly seat, due to disaffection with Sinn Fein over a GAA stadium redevelopment. There is also a good chance of Eamonn McCann winning a seat in Foyle, where he came within a whisker of success in 2011. And at Stormont, as Allister can confirm, two seats make a party." See here: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/its-about-to-kick-off-j028frqlf

Photo: Maria Meyer