SDLP to run against Doherty in West Tyrone
The SDLP has announced today that it will contest West Tyrone at the general election.
The party had previously indicated that it was minded to stand aside to allow local hospital campaigner Dr Kieran Deeney a free run at the sitting Sinn Fein MP, Pat Doherty.
However, both the Ulster Unionists and the DUP are putting candidates up in the seat, which contains the towns of Strabane, Tyrone, and Omagh as well as a large rural hinterland.
Dr Deeney won a seat in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections in November 2003, campaigning to save hospital services in Omagh.
An electoral pact had been widely rumoured to allow Dr Deeney to go head to head with Mr Doherty, who has a majority of 5,040.
Speaking on BBC Ulster’s “Inside Politics” programme on Saturday morning, SDLP leader Mark Durkan declared, “It is the view of central committees of the party, it is the unanimous view of the party’s parliamentary and assembly groups that we should have candidates in all 18 constituencies and that’s what we will be offering people.”
