An intriguing election contest lies ahead in Derry on Thursday where Sinn Fein is seeking top spot in a city that has repeatedly bucked wider trends in northern nationalism.
It is now over two years since Sinn Fein asked the local leadership of the party in Derry to step aside, prompted by a review that followed two disastrous election results in the space of eight months.
While there are interesting battles elsewhere in the council, it will likely be the outcome of the rivalry between the SDLP and Sinn Fein that proves most informative for the future of politics in the overwhelmingly nationalist region.
Read more: Full list of candidates for council elections in Derry City and Strabane
The two results that prompted such drastic action from Sinn Fein's leadership both came in 2019, when the party lost five seats on Derry City and Strabane council and the first ever Sinn Fein MP for Foyle, Elisha McCallion, suffered a crushing defeat in a snap general election to the SDLP leader Colum Eastwood.
Prior to those two results, Sinn Fein had appeared to be on the ascendancy in Derry, having played second fiddle to their nationalist rivals for decades.
Historic results at both local and Westminster elections display this pattern clearly.
The SDLP returned the most seats on the old Derry City Council at every election from the 1970s through to 2011, before it was merged with the old Strabane council.
And at Westminster, the SDLP won every election in Foyle since the constituency was created in 1983.
But in 2014, following the addition of parts of west Tyrone to the council boundaries, Sinn Fein became the dominant party for the first time on the new Derry City and Strabane District super council with 16 seats to the SDLP's 10.
And three years later, in the 2017 General Election, Sinn Fein's Elisha McCallion won the Foyle seat at Westminster by the finest of margins against the SDLP's Mark Durkan.
The two results in 2019, however, changed what until then had looked like a rosy picture for Sinn Fein in Derry and prompted a review by party leadership that resulted in its two sitting Foyle MLAs, Martina Anderson and Karen Mullan, being ousted.
In the May 2019 council election, the loss of five seats for Sinn Fein and a single gain for the SDLP meant the two parties have held 11 seats apiece in Derry city and Strabane.
And the two new faces put forward by Sinn Fein for Stormont, primary school teacher Padraig Delargey and community development worker Ciara Ferguson, made it across the line comfortably in last year's Stormont elections to place the two parties once again on an even footing in Derry with two Foyle seats each.
For this week's poll, Sinn Fein are standing 18 candidates in Derry and Strabane to the SDLP's 15.
A positive result for Sinn Fein would represent success for the root and branch review undertaken in 2021, while a good result for the SDLP would show the party can maintain its dominance in its most important stronghold.
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