Northern Ireland election 2023: Belfast City who will come out on top?

Belfast City Council is the largest council in Northern Ireland

The absence of a Northern Ireland Assembly means the election to Belfast City Council will have an extra political edge.

With 60 seats, it is the largest elected body in Northern Ireland which is currently functioning.

The Belfast city chamber has mirrored Stormont in recent years.

At the last council election in 2019, Sinn Féin held the most seats, and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) came in second.

Voters go to the polls on Thursday to elect members to 11 different councils, using the single transferable vote (STV) method.

• What is Northern Ireland's voting system?

In Belfast, a total of 121 candidates are in the race.

The results were broadcast on BBC Northern Ireland in 2019 - and showed the share of the vote

Here are the results of the last council election in 2019, the share-out of seats compared to the previous election in 2014, was:

Sinn Féin 18 (-1)

DUP 15 (+2)

Alliance 10 (+2)

SDLP 6 (-1)

Green Party 4 (+3)

People Before Profit 3 (+2)

Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) 2 (-5)

Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) 2 (-1)

Traditional Unionist Voice 0 (-1)

Political Prize - Lord Mayor

With 31 votes required to pass any motion, the parties were forced to work with each other.

For example, if Sinn Féin came up with a proposal, they needed the approval of the DUP or at least two other parties.

With the third largest number of seats, the Alliance Party held a key strategic position when Sinn Féin or the DUP were seeking support.

The ultimate political prize in Belfast is the position of lord mayor. During the last four-year council term, Sinn Féin held the top post twice.

During the other years, the post went to the DUP and the Alliance Party.

Unusually, two of the lord mayors did not serve a full term.

Sinn Féin's John Finucane stepped down after he was elected MP for North Belfast and Alliance's Kate Nicholl vacated the role after she was elected to the Assembly.

They were replaced by a party colleague as lord mayor, and another politician from their party was co-opted onto the council to take their seat.

Overall, there were 16 co-options during the past four years.

David McCann said Belfast City Council is unique in its political landscape

Belfast is unique

One of the journalists who covers the monthly meetings of the full council is David McCann, deputy editor of the political website Slugger O'Toole.

Reflecting on the outgoing council, he told BBC News NI: "Belfast is a bit of a unique council in Northern Ireland in that neither unionism or nationalism has an outright majority.

"There were 17 councillors elected in 2019 in Belfast that did not designate as either unionist or nationalist.

"Something I'll be looking out for is, does that block grow? Do we come back with more or less councillors in the 'neither' designation?

"Another thing to look out for is what kind of day do the two main parties have, the DUP and Sinn Féin?

"Sinn Féin didn't have a great result in 2019. It'll be interesting to see how they do this time.

"And can the DUP maintain the strength that they were able to gain in 2019?"

Party Politics at Belfast City Council

Political analysts will also be keeping an eye on the Green Party. After winning an extra three seats on the council in 2019, they were tipped to rise even further in local politics.

However, at last year's Assembly election, they lost their two seats at Stormont.

The fortunes of the Ulster Unionist Party will also be watched with interest. The party which once dominated Belfast City Hall slipped back to only two seats in 2019.

With defections from other parties, they gained two more councillors during the term but it is a party with a lot of work to do if it is to regain a prominent position in Belfast.

The same could be said of the SDLP. They, too, are not the force they once were in politics but are trying to rebuild.

Local issues matter

Council elections are not just about party politics, they are also fought on local issues.

Whether it be bin collections or street cleaning or swimming pool opening times, these are the matters often raised at the doors when politicians come knocking.

The state of the city centre was a big issue for the last council to try to tackle.

In the wake of a fire at the Primark store in 2018, the city has taken time to recover.

A new chief executive, John Walsh, took over last year.

He faces many challenges as Belfast tries to innovate while providing core services with a tight budget.

As in all councils, recent years were made more difficult by the Covid pandemic.

It led to many meetings being held remotely which made building cross-party relations more difficult.

As expected, there were huge political rows at City Hall during the past four years, but there was still co-operation on many key issues.

Turn-out at the 2019 council election in Belfast was 51%, which was below the Northern Ireland average, 53%

As for a prediction, the only safe forecast is to expect polling day to be warm and sunny in Belfast with a gentle spring breeze.