The legacy of Gerry Adams takes an electoral turn since the beginning of the peace process, helped by the unionist division
According to polls, the Sinn Féin party, historically associated with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) terrorist group, will obtain the largest number of votes in the regional elections held this Thursday in Northern Ireland. His victory is presented as an important step for the future political unity of the island of Ireland.
The unknown of the last hours is the notable number of undecided, 17% in the last poll published on Wednesday, but the advantage of the Irish Republicans over the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has been maintained in the polls in recent weeks. The electoral system is a single transferable vote, which requires a count of two or three days to allocate the 90 seats in the Assembly.
If the forecasts are confirmed, Michelle O’Neill, 46, the daughter of a former IRA prisoner, will be the chief minister of the Executive, sharing the leadership of regional politics with the deputy chief minister, who will be a unionist, or in favor of permanence in the United Kingdom. Never in the centuries-old history of the province has a Catholic or nationalist person occupied such a role.
His election would be another historical reversal for Sinn Féin, which grew up on the wing of the IRA in the early 20th century. They opposed the division of Ireland, starting a civil war against the co-religionists who accepted the creation of the Irish Free State in the south and later a terrorist-type war to overthrow Northern Ireland’s autonomy and end the British presence on the island.
In the south, they have led the Free State since 1932. Following the 1994 ceasefire, Gerry Adams’s Sinn Féin has promoted the disarmament and demobilization of the IRA, supported the reformed Regional Police and introduced the shared institutions created in the Good Friday Agreement, in 1998, as necessary platforms to promote the unity of Ireland.
The others’
A victory in the North would come two years after he won the highest number of votes in the general election of the Republic of Ireland. Now led by a middle-class Dublin woman, Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Féin was unable to form a government, but its success forced an unprecedented coalition between the successor parties of civil war rivals Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. .
The latest polls say that the IRA party would get 34% of the vote in an election for the Dublin ‘Dáil’. In their electoral program in the north, the republicans ask the governments of Dublin and London to begin preparations for the unity of Ireland and the referendums that would promote them. The 1998 Peace Agreement provides for the calling of a referendum in the North if the majority wishes it.
Irish republicanism has reason for optimism. If you govern in the north and in the south, you will be able to promote cooperation between the two parts of the island. For 36.5% of those under 35, it is the most attractive match in Northern Ireland. The failure of the Irish ‘establishment’ to provide a satisfactory housing and health policy has fertilized the popularity of the nationalist left in the south.
The advantage in the north of Sinn Féin, with a predicted percentage of votes similar to those of the last decade, is due to the unionist division. Although censuses and polls give a majority to those who want to remain part of the United Kingdom, Jeffrey Donaldson’s DUP is divided by internal disputes. The moderate Ulster Unionist Party and the radical Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) will take votes away from him.
The rapid growth of the liberal Alianza party, born as a reforming unionist but which is not defined as unionist or nationalist in the register of the Autonomous Assembly, but rather by the third option, ‘others’, and a myriad of small groups, suggests that the population is preoccupied with other matters. The parties have focused their campaign on the cost of living rather than on the union of Ireland or the entanglements of ‘Brexit’.
Unionists trust Johnson to save their veto
The ephemeral chief minister, Paul Givan, resigned on February 8 following the orders of the leader of the DUP, Jeffrey Donaldson, who had already warned of his intention to bring down the autonomous Executive if the border controls between Great Britain and Northern Ireland were not eliminated. . It is not clear that after the elections the government will be rebuilt.
Northern Ireland’s Home Rule Act has had to be amended to prevent the majority parties holding the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister positions from often bringing down the Executive. If one of them resigns, the other must also resign. The current norm allows the ministers of the Executive to continue working after the elections, although they cannot decide on anything new.
Donaldson has warned, in an interview with the Press Association agency, that he wants to lead the DUP in government. But “we have to resolve the Protocol issues,” he added. “They have to be resolved,” he says. And he declared his conviction that his party will win the elections and the Government of Boris Johnson “will take decisive action” on the Protocol after the elections.
trade war
The newspaper ‘Financial Times’ published a few days ago the news that Johnson’s Cabinet is preparing a bill that would allow him to unilaterally modify or suspend aspects of the Withdrawal Agreement signed with the EU. Article 16 of the Irish Protocol allows parties to take unilateral action if “serious economic, social or environmental difficulties are detected which are likely to persist”.
According to Sara B. Hobolt, from the London School of Economics, the dispute over the border regime could return ‘Brexit’ to the center of British politics. The two big parties, especially Labour, now avoid it. But the EU could respond with strong measures against the UK, including giving notice to cancel the trade deal within nine months.
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