Sinn Fein grabs top spot in historic Northern Ireland vote
BELFAST — Sinn Fein became the biggest party in Northern Ireland's Assembly for the first time on Saturday, a historic election result that marks a significant shift in the region's balance of power and sends a strong message to Boris Johnson's government in London.
The nationalist party, whose ultimate goal is to unite Northern Ireland with the neighbouring Republic of Ireland, won the largest number of seats and intends to nominate its northern leader Michelle O'Neill as the region's first minister.
“Today represents a very significant moment of change,” O'Neill, 45, said on Saturday. “It's a defining moment for politics and for people. Today ushers in a new era.”
It's the first time that a nationalist party has topped the vote since the power-sharing government was established following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which largely ended decades of violence between unionists and nationalists.
While the prospect of reuniting the island for the first time since 1921 remains far off, the election shows the parties backing a unionist future with Britain are in retreat.
“Northern Ireland was founded as a Unionist state, with an inbuilt Unionist majority,” said Brian Hanley, assistant professor in 20th Century History at Trinity College Dublin. “The election of not just a nationalist as first minister, but a republican from a tradition which rejects the partition of Ireland entirely, is seismic.”
Sinn Fein won at least 27 seats, overtaking the formerly dominant pro-British Democratic Unionist Party, which had secured 24 with 88 out of 90 seats declared.
The former political wing of the Irish Republican Army won 29 per cent of first choice votes, while the DUP drew 21 per cent support.
The results also show the exponential rise of a third force — the centrist and pro-EU Alliance Party, which more than doubled its number of seats to 17 from eight by Saturday evening.
Its success reflects the growing number of people who have rejected traditional sectarian loyalties. That may add to calls for constitutional reform to the power-sharing system which gives preference to parties designated as unionist or nationalist.
The outcome deals a heavy blow to unionists, with the formerly dominant pro-British Democratic Unionist Party losing seats from 28 in 2017.
The DUP's losses will be keenly felt by the U.K.'s Conservative government, still embroiled in a battle with the European Union over Brexit arrangements for trade with Northern Ireland.