23/05/2014 BBC Newsline

the smallest margins. That is all from us. Now

Good evening. Counting is still under way in the local district

election. 462 seats are up for grabs in total in the 11 new super

councils. Around a third of those seats have now been declared and the

latest results look like this. Well the results are still coming in

and our political reporter Stephen Walker has been following how the

counts are unfolding. Waiting for the results became a family day out

in some counting centres, 900 hopefuls were chasing 460 seats in

11 district councils. Counting staff in Newtown at the proved to be the

fastest. There it was a in Newtown at the proved to be the

celebration as the DUP councillor became elected. In Lisbon and

Castlereagh water ski champion Janet Rae was successful. I would like to

represent people with disabilities and encourage young ones in sport am

basically go out and make a difference in the community. Sinn

Fein MP Francie Molloy was an interested observer here. We are

going to overwhelmingly be the largest party. The results clearly

suggest we are doing well. Claire Hanna will also return to the

council chamber. I am really pleased, I have been working as hard

as I can. There were changes, but I am pleased it has held up here.

There were joys for Michael Long, despite fears the protest vote might

affect him, he topped the poll in his area. I am absolutely

delighted, it is a fantastic result for the Alliance party, for myself

and my whole team. There was a lot of attention on Ni21's Miss

Mackenzie, but she received just 236 preference votes. This political

activist was once banned from the city centre... I was out protesting,

campaigning for tuition fees to remain at the level that they were

and they were increased. That shows that when people get organised and

take to the streets, they can stop these measures being implemented. In

Londonderry, scanners were implemented at the centre and it was

admitted recent events have caused this party difficulties. The Ulster

unionists were pleased with their vote here. We topped the poll is so

obviously feel, especially in the west, the Ulster unionist party are

doing very well. So far the TUV have won six seats. A picture is

beginning to emerge of who the winners and losers are in this

election, but it is only part of the story. It will be tomorrow afternoon

before we get all of the results. The deputy leader of NI21 John

McCallister has called on Basil McCrea to step down as party leader.

It follows allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour made

against Mr McCrea by a former party worker. Mr McCrea denies the

allegations against him. Mark Simpson reports. When the new

political party NI21 was launched, Basil McCrea promised a new era in

politics. But less than a year later, the party is in turmoil.

Basil McCrea is facing allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour.

On BBC radio Ulster this morning he rejected the claims. The allegations

were only brought to my attention last night and at first reading of

them I can say that I deny them, but it is obviously an issue that I am

going to have to deal with and one of the things I am looking at is how

best to deal with the issues and this issue needs to be dealt with.

It has led to a public fallout with deputy leader John McCallister. Last

night John McCallister claimed that the party's sudden decision this

week to scrap its Unionist designation was an attempt to force

him out of the party. Tonight he called on his party leader to step

down whilst the investigation is under way. It has been an

extraordinary couple of days. It is difficult to imagine a worse set of

circumstances for a new political party. It is hard to see how they

now survive. I feel we have let down a lot of voters by having this right

now. I am very hurt and shocked and devastated and I think Basil McCrea

needs to have a fair process. It is important that people do not judge

people until the opportunity comes to have all of the facts. This is

the woman who made the allegations against Basil McCrea. Ashley Murray

is a former party worker. She says the allegations go back to next year

but says she hasn't gone to the police. He is respected politician

with a lot of power behind them. Who's going to believe me? That is

the way I saw it. Who will believe me? Why did you to going back to

work? I needed the work. I left school with no qualifications and

found it hard through employment. I needed to prove to myself that I

could do this, I could go in to a place like Stormont and be an equal

like they are. Basil McCrea was not available for a television interview

but has repeatedly said he has done nothing wrong. Our political editor

Mark Devenport joins me now. More dramatic developments tonight, but

as far as the electoral performance are concerned, have NI21 shown any

signs of connecting with the public? I don't think they have made the

kind of breakthrough they were hoping for before the selection.

Whether that as a result of this but publicity or not, it is not sure.

Christina Dobson might be vying for a final seat in her area, otherwise

we have seen Gina McKenzie eliminated and the other candidates

not coming through. At this stage who are the winners and losers?

Compared with the last local elections you can see that the TUV

will be happy with their performance, as worldly Ulster

unionists, the smaller parties, and UKIP, whereas the bigger parties DUP

and Sinn Fein are slightly down, but that to some extent depends on the

boxes and the particular areas where the votes have been counted already

and we might have developments on that tomorrow. How long will the

counting centres keep counting for this evening? It depends on each

individual officer, if the end is in sight they will keep counting

tonight but others will say let's call it a night. We can guess how

some of the counts will work out tomorrow but we will not know for

sure until tomorrow. A very busy weekend looking toward Monday as

well. Yes, we have the European election to come and we will have to

see whether for instance the TUV is doing well what the UUP performance

is in comparison to this so sometimes it is broadly similar but

there are always differences and we will discover that on Monday. Thank

you. Rory McIlroy ended the day tied for

fifth at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. It proved a bit of a

roller-coaster ride for the Holywood man who had a rough start - this

error leading to a double bogey six at the seventh hole. He was three

over for the front nine and nearly missed the cut. However, this superb

iron shot on the 12th prompted a turn around. He went on to birdie

three of the last four holes to leave him well placed ahead of the

weekend. Three over after the front nine wasn't so good but the

conditions are really tricky out there. I feel like anything under

par this morning was a decent score and to get in under par for the

day, I am pleased with that. Onto the weekend weather forecast now,

and with the details here's Geoff Maskell.

We had a few showers across county down through this evening and as we

going to -- go into tonight, we will have more organised rain with

temperatures dipping down to seven or eight degrees. The rain will

persist until dawn tomorrow. It means Saturday starts quite wet but

the rain will move out of the way quite quickly and behind it we have

a drier, brighter and warm day. What is driving that changes this low

pressure system, and as it moves away we start to lose the effects of

that low pressure and that is why our skies start to brighten up as we

go through the day. The south of England by contrast is having a much

wetter day of it on Saturday. Still some quite warm air there though.

The Saturday afternoon, quite dry and bright picture across Northern

Ireland, temperatures up to 15 degrees. As we go into the evening,

we will start to see this guy is clouding over and some rain starting

to work its way in. Sunday will be a grey and drizzly day to begin with,

not as good as Saturday, although the temperatures are holding up

quite well. Casting an eye towards bank holiday Monday, I think there

is the reason for some optimism - some brighter spells in amongst the

showers. Our election coverage will continue

tomorrow afternoon at five past two, meanwhile you can keep up to date

with the results on BBC radio Ulster. Good night, and have a great

weekend.