UUP Hits Out Over North Antrim Petition Centres

The UUP has hit out after it was revealed that the Chief Electoral Officer is to open only three recall petition centres in North Antrim.

MPs voted to suspend DUP MP Ian Paisley for 30 sitting days after he failed to declare two holidays funded by the Sri Lanken government.

People are being urged to sign a petition which could force a by-election in the area.

An election will take place if 10% of constituents sign the petition.

UUP Leader Robin Swann said he was disappointed that only petition centres are to open.

He said: "Not only are three petition centres totally inadequate for a constituency the size of North Antrim, by restricting the opening hours to mainly 9am-5pm from Monday-Friday the Electoral Office have shown little regard to people in daytime employment.

"I suspect that this very limited provision, both in terms of locations and timings, will lead to a larger than usual request for postal votes, and whether rightly or wrongly, this may well lead to accusations of voter identity abuse.

"The Ulster Unionist Party will not register as a campaigner during the recall petition, but we would encourage any North Antrim electors who think what Ian Paisley did was wrong to sign the petition and allow the entire North Antrim electorate to have their say."

Sinn Féin MLA Philip McGuigan said: "It is extremely disappointing that the Electoral Commission has decided to only open three centres with limited opening hours for the recall petition.

"This is simply not good enough.

"It greatly reduces people's ability to reject the disgraceful behaviour of Ian Paisley in accepting lavish family holidays from the Sri Lankan government before lobbying against a UN investigation into war crimes and human rights abuses.

"North Antrim is a large constituency and Sinn Féin proposed that the recall petition should be available in as many as ten local government offices."

(CD)