Northern Ireland votes in shadow of EU debate
Assembly’s executive could be suspended and the province fully governed from London
Northern Ireland began voting yesterday in snap elections to resolve a political crisis fuelled by bad blood and Brexit, which is testing the delicate peace in the British province.
Long-simmering tensions boiled over in January when Sinn Fein deputy first minister Martin McGuinness quit, saying he could no longer work with First Minister Arlene Foster from the rival Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
His resignation triggered fresh elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, a semi-autonomous legislature in Belfast in which representatives of once warring communities have shared power on and off since a 1998 peace deal.
Observers predict a similar outcome to the May 2016 assembly elections, in which the Protestant, conservative and pro-British DUP won slightly more seats than the Catholic, socialist and Irish Republican Sinn Fein.
If Sinn Fein and the DUP cannot resolve their differences after the vote, the assembly’s executive could be suspended and the province fully governed from London.
“I’d be more pessimistic than optimistic that the DUP and Sinn Fein can get back in a government together quickly,” Jonathan Tonge, a Northern Ireland politics expert at Liverpool University, told AFP.
McGuinness resigned in protest over a botched green energy subsidy scheme instigated by Foster when she was economy minister, which has left the executive facing a possible £490 million (Dh2.20 billion; $600 million, 570 million euro) overspend.
It was the breaking point after months of tensions with the DUP.
Historical enimity
Deeply-ingrained historical enmity was also exacerbated by the June vote to leave European Union, which the DUP supported but Sinn Fein opposed.
McGuinness is not standing again due to ill health.
His successor as Sinn Fein’s leader in Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill, has signalled a possible way out.
“We’re up for going back into government but only on the basis of equality, respect and integrity,” she told AFP in an interview on the last day of campaigning on Wednesday.
“We cannot go into government with Arlene Foster as First or Deputy First Minister while there is a shadow hanging over her but that doesn’t mean we can’t find a way forward”.
In the streets of Belfast, there was disillusionment over the latest scandal to hit Northern Ireland politics.
Civil servant Catherine Aouad told AFP: “I’m just fed up with all the corruption and all the scandals to do with the heating and all the rest of it.”