Sinn Fein wins Northern Ireland polls
■ First IRA-linked outfit to wrest control of Irish Assembly
Belfast, May 7: The Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, which seeks unification with Ireland, hailed a “new era” Saturday for Northern Ireland as it captured the largest number of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly for the first time in a historic win.
With almost all votes counted from Thursday's local UK election, Sinn Fein secured 27 of the Assembly’s 90 seats. The Democratic Unionist Party, which has dominated Northern Ireland’s legislature for two decades, captured 24 seats. The victory means Sinn Fein is entitled to the post of first minister in Belfast for the first time since Northern Ireland was founded as a Protestant-majority state in 1921.
The centrist Alliance Party, which doesn’t identify as either nationalist or unionist, saw huge surge in support and was set to become the other big winner in the vote, claiming 17 seats.
The victory is a milestone for Sinn Fein, which has long been linked to the Irish Republican Army, a paramilitary group that used bombs and bullets to try to take Northern Ireland out of U.K. rule during decades of violence involving Irish republican militants, Protestant Loyalist paramilitaries and the UK Army and police.
“Today ushers in a new era,” Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle O’Neill said shortly before the final results were announced. “Irrespective of religious, political or social backgrounds, my commitment is to make politics work."
There is “space in this state for everyone, all of us together,” O’Neill said. “There is an urgency to restore an Executive and start putting money back in people’s pockets, to start to fix the health service. The people can’t wait.”
◗ THE VICTORY means Sinn Fein is entitled to the post of first minister in Belfast for the first time since Northern Ireland was founded as a Protestant-majority state in 1921
Belfast, May 7: Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), hailed its first election win in Northern Ireland’s history as a “defining moment” for the British-controlled region and called for a debate on the creation of a united Ireland.
Sinn Fein was ahead of the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party by 27 to 24 seats with two left to declare, making it the first Irish nationalist party to secure control of the assembly. It won 29% of first-preference votes to the DUP's 21.3%.
“Today represents a very significant moment of change. It's a defining moment in our politics and for our people,” the head of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill, said.
She said there should now be an honest debate around the party's goal of unifying the territory with the Republic of Ireland.
The victory will not change the region's status, as the referendum required to leave the United Kingdom is at the discretion of the British government and likely years away.
But the symbolic importance is huge, ending a century of domination by pro-British parties, supported predominantly by the region’s Protestant population.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who is also leading a campaign to secede from the United Kingdom, was among the first to congratulate Sinn Fein in a Twitter post that hailed a “truly historic result”.
While the largest party has the right to put forward a candidate for First Minister of the region's compulsory power-sharing government, disagreements with the DUP mean such an appointment could be months away.
Asked by a journalist if she expected to become the region’s first Irish nationalist First Minister, O’Neill said: “The people have spoken”.
DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said it would not join the government unless the protocol governing Northern Ireland's trade with the rest of the UK following its exit from the European Union was totally overhauled. read more
Sinn Fein was long shunned by the political establishment on both sides of the Irish border for its links to IRA violence during three decades of fighting over Northern Ireland's place within the United Kingdom that ended with a 1998 peace deal.