The first province wide ‘referendum’ on the power-sharing Stormont Executive was set to be played out today as voting in the European elections got under way.

The first province wide ‘referendum’ on the power-sharing Stormont Executive was set to be played out today as voting in the European elections got under way.

Two years after devolution returned, voters were giving their verdict on the political parties involved in, and opposed to, the Stormont administration.

Three seats in the European Parliament are up for grabs — unlike other areas of the European Union, including the Irish Republic, Northern Ireland has not had its allocation reduced due to EU expansion.

And while the results will not be announced until around teatime on Monday, attention is likely to focus on who will secure the third seat.

For the first time, three unionist parties are in the race, increasing the prospect that nationalists could take two of the three places.

The poll is also the first test for the new Conservative and Unionist partnership, with candidate Jim Nicholson, who has won the final seat in every European election over the last 20 years.

But it will also provide the first across-the-province indication of support for former DUP MEP Jim Allister’s breakaway Traditional Unionist Voice. Both he and Mr Nicholson are the only candidates to have changed their political designations since the last European elections in 2004.

The early emphasis in the aftermath of Monday may be the candidate who ‘tops the poll’, which means gaining the largest number of first preferences, with bookmakers fuelling DUP fears that Sinn Fein could take the position for the first time. In European elections, it has always been won by the DUP.