BELFAST, United Kingdom —
Northern Ireland’s
feuding leaders came under international pressure Sunday to unite in a new
government after the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein secured an unprecedented
election win.
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Once the political wing of the paramilitary IRA,
Sinn Fein won enough seats in the devolved legislature to nominate its Northern
Ireland leader Michelle O’Neill as first minister.
The result from Thursday’s election for the Stormont
assembly marked a potentially seismic shift, a century after Northern Ireland
was carved out as a Protestant fiefdom under British rule.
With all 90 seats filled from Thursday’s
proportional voting, Sinn Fein won 27 seats, ahead of the
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) on 25 and the cross-community Alliance party on 17.
At the imposing Stormont legislative building,
formerly a bastion of unionist monopoly power, disaffected DUP voter Jordan
Black said: “I feel like a lot of them are stuck in the past really.”
“Change might be for the better,” the 26-year-old
mechanic told AFP.
“If they (Sinn Fein) start doing stuff that helps
people and helps everybody, then more power to them, 100 percent,” he said.
O’Neill said the result “ushers in a new era” for
the divided territory, and Sinn Fein said it wanted a referendum on reuniting
Ireland within five years.
But only the
UK government can grant a referendum,
and Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis noted that a majority of voters
overall still backed the constitutional status quo.
Ahead of convening party leaders for talks in
Belfast on Monday, Lewis recognized nevertheless that Sinn Fein’s triumph was a
“significant moment for Northern Ireland”.
Lewis urged the leaders to “work with each other to
find a way to come back into Stormont (and) form the executive”.
The Irish and
US governments also urged Northern
Ireland’s leaders to form a new power-sharing executive, under the terms of a
1998 peace deal that ended three decades of bloodshed.
But DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson demanded
Prime Minister Boris Johnson first “deliver on his word” and scrap post-Brexit
trading rules with the EU.
Unionists fear the so-called Northern Ireland
Protocol is casting them adrift from the UK, by imposing a de-facto trading
border in the Irish Sea.
Lewis said the government still preferred to
negotiate a solution with Brussels on the protocol — but reserved the right to
act unilaterally to protect intra-UK trade and Northern Ireland’s
constitutional status.
“It’s very disappointing that what we’re hearing is
the
EU is already saying it won’t show any flexibility,” the minister said.
While Sinn Fein will get to nominate a first
minister, Northern Ireland’s government can only form under the 1998 deal if
the DUP agrees to take part and serve in the role of deputy first minister.
Lorraine Kane, a 58-year-old civil servant, said
“the DUP shot themselves in the foot, pretty much”.
“They talked a lot about the
Northern Ireland Protocol and the Irish Sea border, and that’s not what people wanted out of
this election.”
“People were more concerned about the cost of
living. I think that’s where Sinn Fein hit it right on the nail,” she said.
The parties have 24 weeks to resolve their
differences or face a new election. Ministers from the outgoing executive can
continue in caretaker roles, overseen by London.
Katy Hayward, professor of political sociology at
Queen’s University Belfast, said the parties were likely to take the full 24
weeks for interminable horse-trading.
She noted the DUP wants the protocol removed, Sinn
Fein has longstanding demands to protect the Irish language and the Alliance
wants an overhaul at Stormont to recognize the rise of the middle ground — none
of which can be easily achieved.
“But given the urgency of crises in the cost of living and
healthcare, we do need an executive formed and then can think of bigger
adjustments to the (1998) Good Friday Agreement when we’re in a better place,” Hayward
told AFP.
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