Derry could be without a unionist mayor for the entirety of the current council term after positions are decided at its annual general meeting.
The council will meet on Monday to decide who will take over from the outgoing Mayor Sandra Duffy.
Derry has had a nationalist majority in local government since the 1970s but, thanks to the system of rotating the Mayorship between the parties, there have still been enough unionists elected to ensure multiple unionist mayors over recent decades.
Read more: NI election results for Derry City and Strabane in full
The recent council elections, however, mean no single unionist party holds enough seats to guarantee any of the one-year Mayoral terms available between now and the next election.
Sinn Fein has become the largest party on the council with 18 of the 40 available seats, followed by the SDLP who won 10.
The next largest parties on the council are the DUP with five seats, followed by the UUP with three.
The question of who can serve as Mayor in Derry - and in councils across Northern Ireland - is decided by a method named after Belgian lawyer Victor D'Hondt.
The D'Hondt system, which is also used to allocate places on the Northern Ireland Executive and committees at Stormont, awards places on a rotating basis in order of party size.
The formula and the number of seats won means that, if they choose to do so on Monday, Sinn Fein and the SDLP could opt for all Mayoral positions available until the next election - leaving the city without a unionist Mayor for the first time in decades.
A DUP spokesperson said: “Roles will be distributed via d’Hondt in the same way as other years. We will make our selections from whatever positions are available when it is our turn in each cycle of the process.”
UUP councillor Ryan McCready, speaking to Belfast Live, said: "D'Hondt determines who gets what position and at what term. If, and this is based on the premise that Sinn Fein and the SDLP select Mayorship and Deputy Mayorship until that runs out, that would rule out any full Mayor but you could see a unionist Deputy Mayor.
"Sinn Fein will definitely select year one, Sinn Fein Mayor, and then they can by right choose two more which would give the SDLP the fourth. Now, you don't have to take them. They might say they don't want the third Mayorship, that they want committee chairman instead.
"There is an opportunity there for a unionist Mayor but it would require SDLP or Sinn Fein not to select it under D'Hondt."
He added: "The decision will be for them alone, themselves alone - that's what Sinn Fein stands for. Without that pun intended, I don't expect anything from any other party. Sinn Fein won that election fair and square and the democratic outlay of that entitles them to it. I'm indifferent as to whether they defer to another party to allow them, in this case it would be the DUP, to take a Mayorship."
The Annual General Meeting of Derry City and Strabane District Council is due to take place at the Guildhall on Monday at 7pm, and will be streamed live on YouTube.
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