[caption id="attachment_67871" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="New SDLP leader Dr. Alasdair McDonnell after his election last weekend."]
Dr. Alasdair McDonnell is the surprise choice of SDLP members as the party's new leader.
The South Belfast MP topped the poll at the party's annual conference in Belfast at the weekend coming ahead of Conall McDevitt, Patsy McGlone and Alex Attwood.
When Attwood and bookies favorite McGlone's votes were redistributed, McDonnell held on against a strong challenge from party
new boy McDevitt.
Hoping to hit the ground running the new leader instead delivered a stop-start speech live on TV where he seemed agitated by a glare on his autocue from the rooms lighting system.
Later he rejected criticism of his acceptance speech and set a target of 20 seats in the next assembly election.
"I am going to get more seats," said Dr. McDonnell.
"I felt that at the last election, had we done our homework a bit sooner, we might have got up to 18 or 20 seats. We are now in a situation where we are down to 14 seats.
"I intend reversing that and at the next assembly election, provided things like constituencies don't change, which is a likelihood, I would, in terms of today's set-up, want to see 20 seats."
Referring to his first leader's speech, McDonnell admitted that he was "very uncomfortable" and felt like a "rabbit in the headlights."
He also said the SDLP has suffered at the polls in recent elections because it had been too focused on implementing the peace agreement.
"What has gone wrong is that we have put far too much of our energy into supporting the settlement. we have been supporting the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement," he said.
"That has been our focus. We have almost been hypnotized by it and we have neglected our grass roots. I want to go back to taking care of the grass roots."
