Ulster Unionist party elects Mike Nesbitt as leader

The former TV news anchor Mike Nesbitt has been elected as the new leader of the Ulster Unionist party. The ex-Ulster Television news reader won a decisive victory on Saturday at the party's annual general meeting in Belfast over his only rival for the post, John McCallister. Nesbitt won 536 of the delegates' votes, as opposed to 129 for McCallister. The defeated candidate had promised to pull the UUP out of the five-party power sharing coalition at Stormont and provide an official opposition to the devolved government.The former broadcaster, who also worked for the BBC as a sports presenter, has suggested a referendum might be held on the merits of creating an official opposition in the Northern Ireland Assembly. One of the 2,000 delegates to vote in the contest, Colin Breen, said he was pleased that the vote had been "clear and decisive" in Nesbitt's favour. "Let's hope now that the two candidates can work together to unite the party and move it forward from where we are now," Breen said. The new UUP chief has a huge task in trying to renew what had been the single biggest party in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and up to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. At present, the UUP has no representation at Westminster having lost its sole MP Lady Sylvia Hermon who resigned from the party over its decision to forge formal links with the Tories. That alliance with the Conservatives has since been severed after the UUP endured a hammering in the last general election and last year's Northern Ireland Assembly elections. The Democratic Unionist party has eclipsed the UUP as the dominant force in unionism with the former moving to the centre and ultimate power-sharing with Sinn Fein.