Resignation threatens peace deal N Ireland
NORTHERN IRELAND: Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government was plunged into crisis Monday as its senior Catholic leader quit in a showdown with his Protestant colleague that could unravel a central achievement of the region’s peace accord.
Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, the former Irish Republican Army commander who has helped to lead the unity government for nearly a decade, said he intends to trigger early elections in a challenge to his power-sharing partner, First Minister Arlene Foster.
In his resignation letter, McGuinness accused Foster of ignoring ‘‘a public mood that is rightly outraged at the squandering of public money and allegations of misconduct and corruption.’’
The government, formed under terms of Northern Ireland’s 1998 Good Friday peace accord, requires support from the Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party and Foster’s Democratic Unionists, who represent the British Protestant majority.
Their unlikely partnership has been credited with governing the long-disputed corner of the United Kingdom in relative harmony following the four decades of bloodshed that claimed 3,700 lives.
But tensions between Sinn Fein and the DUP have come close to breaking point several times before. And IRA splinter groups opposed to the outlawed group’s 2005 decision to renounce violence and disarm still plot gun and bomb attacks in hopes of reigniting division and disorder.
McGuinness has repeatedly had called on Foster to step aside while lawmakers investigate her alleged mismanagement of a government ‘‘green energy’’ program. Lawmakers estimate the program could cost taxpayers more than £500 million in inefficiently distributed subsidy payments.
Foster survived a no confidence vote solely on backing from her own party.
A frail-looking McGuinness denied his resignation was linked to health problems. AP