Local results show swing against Trimble

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Local council election results brought bad but not disastrous news yesterday for David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist Party leader, whose prospects for survival are the subject of much discussion.

The first day of counting votes cast to elect local councillors confirmed the Westminster pattern of highly significant swings to Sinn Fein and the Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists (DUP).

But unlike the Westminster results, when the Ulster Unionists lost three seats and Sinn Fein gained two, the day brought no severe losses of a kind that would have dismayed Mr Trimble's party and triggered a leadership crisis.

The picture was repeated of Sinn Fein making gains from the Social Democratic and Labour Party, whose vote was more static. Sinn Fein hope that gains on Belfast council will produce the party's first ever lord mayor of the city.

The picture is still incomplete in that counting for the contest, which takes place by proportional representation, will continue today, with the full picture emerging this evening.

Some Ulster Unionists were estimating that the party might drop 30 council seats, though others were more hopeful.

Open criticism of Mr Trimble came yesterday from William Ross, who lost his East Londonderry seat to the DUP. Describing Mr Trimble as a liability to the party, Mr Ross said: "What I was told on the doorstep, day after day after day, was that a vote for Ross was a vote for David Trimble and they weren't voting for David Trimble. It was as simple and brutal as that."

Few of Northern Ireland's 26 councils are under one-party control, most of them functioning on the basis of informal coalitions. But while control of them is not politically vital, the share of the vote gained by each party is seen as significant.

The Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, said that the Unionist party's election reverses would make things more difficult in Northern Ireland. Mr Ahern is to review the situation with Tony Blair when they meet at a European summit in Sweden this week.

Mr Ahern said: "I think both of us are determined to get on with what we wanted to do, anyway, regardless. We have to do that, but I think it will be more difficult, and we will see how the local election results go.

"I hope everybody holds their nerve on these issues. I know David Trimble would have liked to do better, but he is still there with a lot of seats, and we will just have to try and deal with the situation. He has been very much a progressive leader in all of these talks for the past four years, so I think it is important that he is there as we work our way through."

The meeting of the Unionist party's ruling council takes place on 23 June, when Mr Trimble may be subject to a leadership challenge. In the meantime negotiations on decommissioning and other issues are due to open next week.