‘Croc’ jibes crock DUP in North’s latest struggle

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

The problem with describing your opponents as “crocodiles” in an election campaign is you run the risk of them subsequently gobbling you up.

In one of the most ill-judged comments of the Northern election campaign, Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster said of Sinn Féin: “If you feed a crocodile it will keep coming back for more.”

It became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Republicans were outraged and gave them further evidence to buttress their claim the DUP were treating them with contempt and as second-class citizens.

More than anything else, other than Martin McGuinness’ enforced absence, that comment had the effect of galvanising the Sinn Féin vote – which was a full four per cent higher than the previous Assembly elections only ten months ago.

The ‘crocodile’ became a huge ‘meme’ for Sinn Féin in the campaign, and gave rise to a bit of a mini craze of guys parading around in green suits featuring predatory teeth and swishy tails.

Its Omagh-based MLA Barry McElduff also did a funny video talking about the crocodiles being spotted in the River Shrule in the past.

In the end it was a huge victory for Sinn Féin. The election might have been fought on a novel platform (an issue over governance and “clean” politics) but it clearly became a battle between the largest of the cold-blooded animals in the electoral swamp.

Sinn Féin almost pipped the DUP taking 27.9 per cent of the vote to the DUP’s 28.1 per cent. That difference was a minuscule 0.2 per cent of the vote, almost inconceivable up until this election.

At 27 seats, they came within one seat of equalling the haul of the DUP. Some though there was artifice in the way they walked from government but its argument of not wanting to play second fiddle, or not being accorded respect, had huge purchase with nationalist voters. For the first time, the party out-polled its SDLP rivals in the nationalist constituencies.

On the other side of the coin, The DUP lost ten seats and is now only a single seat ahead of its arch enemy Sinn Féin.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.