The Newry and Armagh MLA seat for the SDLP is to be hotly contested tonight (Thursday) at a party nomination process.
The SDLP holds just eight seats at the Assembly with the party election process aiming to strengthen its position in Stormont as the official opposition.
The current Assembly member Justin McNulty has come under fire from the party in recent times with a former Westminster candidate looking to take his seat.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service contacted both SDLP potential nominees for comment.
Justin McNulty has previously been seen to break party ranks after taking a helicopter flight from Stormont to Co Wexford (2024) to take up a GAA role.
The former Co Armagh GAA player left the Assembly chamber on a historic first day of its restoration in order to manage Laois Gaelic football team.
His early exit meant he missed his SDLP colleague Matthew O’Toole being officially designated as the leader of the Opposition leading to his temporary suspension from the party.
Newry, Mourne and Down District councillor Pete Bryne who fought the last Westminster election for the party is seeking to dislodge McNulty for the Assembly seat formerly held by the late SDLP deputy leader Seamus Mallon.
Former Northern Ireland deputy First Minister Seamus Mallon who passed away in 2020, helped broker the 1998 Good Friday/Belfast Agreement.
McNulty who initially took the Assembly seat in 2015 with more than 12,000 is understood to have rejected an SDLP leadership offer to run in Upper Bann.
In 2022, McNulty’s first preference votes of 6,217 saw him take the final MLA seat of five in the Newry and Armagh constituency.
Pete Byrne who was the council’s first openly gay chairperson stepped into the Westminster election campaign for Newry and Armagh in 2024, when he gained 6,806 votes.
The selection convention will be held at Newry Flagstaff Lodge to decide which man represents the party in next year’s Assembly election.
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