Just days to go to the local council election and in this week's red lines we're focusing on the

unaligned parties facing the electorate on May the 18th. In the past two weeks we've looked at the

challenges facing both nationalism and unionism and today it's the issues confronting the other

parties that we're going to be highlighting as they prepare to contest 462 seats across 11 council areas.

And with me to talk through some of the issues likely to be significant are Dr David McCann,

our resident expert and deputy editor of Slugger O'Toole, the Belfast Telegraphs, political editor,

Suzanne Breen and our own political editor, Enda McLaughrity.

Welcome to all of you, David. We sometimes refer to these parties as the centreground, but in fact, that's not quite right.

No, because a party like People for Profit, for example, has very left-wing views.

The Green Party wouldn't really be considered centre-ground as well. Alliance would probably be the only party within that block that you would maybe consider

as a true centrist party in the tradition that we would think of the Liberal Democrats, for example,

across the water is centrist. So, David, what are the challenges you would point to that this

grouping is facing on May the 18th? Well, a repeat essentially of what happened in 2022, basically

being swamped by the Alliance surge for want of a better term.

So, Alliance go into this election on 11.5% of the first preference vote.

They elected 53 councillors last time, which was one of Alliance's strongest performances.

They gain 21 seats.

The Green Party going to the selection on 2.1%. They elected eight councillors, which again was a very

strong performance for them. They made gains in Belfast

and also in Lisburn and Castle Ray.

And people for a profit also had a strong

election. They go into this council election

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