Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein eyes historic win
>>LONDON: Northern Ireland was carved out of the Irish Republic a century ago to protect the rights of its predominantly Protestant, pro-British population. But Friday, the largest Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, was on the cusp of being declared the territory’s largest party, a political watershed in a land long torn by sectarian violence.
With much of the vote in legislative elections counted Friday evening, Sinn Fein was on track to win the most seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly, a distinction that will allow it to name the first minister in the government.
The significance of the election lies less in political privileges than hardfought history: A nationalist party at the helm in Northern Ireland will kindle new hopes for Irish unity, but it could also sow a return to unrest between Catholics and Protestants in a territory where delicate power-sharing arrangements have kept the peace for more than two decades.
It is a remarkable coming-of-age for a party that many still associate with paramilitary violence.
“For nationalists who have lived in Northern Ireland for decades, to see Sinn Fein as the largest party is an emotional moment,” said Diarmaid Ferriter, professor of modern Irish history at University College Dublin. “The very idea of leading a government in Northern Ireland would once have been repugnant to it.”
Across the United Kingdom, local election results Friday were handing some setbacks to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in what was widely seen as a test of the damage to him and his Conservative Party from a swirling scandal over lockdown-breaking parties at Downing Street.
But it was in Northern Ireland where the results were carrying the most sweeping potential for change.
Sinn Fein’s victory has deeply unsettled the unionists, who have declined to say they will take part in a government with a Sinn Fein first minister. That could lead to a breakdown of Northern Ireland’s parliament, known as Stormont, and paralysis in the government. Some even fear a flare-up of the violence between Catholics and Protestants that the peace accord ended after the 30-year guerrilla war known as the Troubles.
Sinn Fein made its electoral gains with a campaign that emphasised the rising cost of living and health care, and that played down its totemic commitment to uniting the North and South of Ireland — a vestige of its ties to the Irish Republican Army.
The shift pushes the Democratic Unionist Party, which favours Northern Ireland’s status as a part of the UK, into second place for the first time since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.