We can out-liberal the moderates!
That's the stark message which
the ruling Stormont coalition
partners have sent to those who believe
the Northern Ireland Assembly lacks a
formal opposition.
Unlike the Dáil general election in the
Irish Republic earlier this year, Northern
voters have given a massive boost of confidence
to the three main power-sharing
Executive partners – the Democratic
Unionists, Sinn Féin, and the centrist Alliance
Party.
The economic crisis has seen the ruling
Fianna Fáil and Green Party coalition in
the Republic swept aside by the centreright
Fine Gael and Irish Labour, with
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny elected
Taoiseach.
But the Northern Ireland electorate has
given resounding support to the 'New
Chuckle Brothers' routine of DUP First
Minister Peter Robinson, Sinn Féin deputy
First Minister Martin McGuinness and
Alliance Justice Minister David Ford.
In the new 108-seat Assembly, the
governing coalition has been boosted by
an additional five members, while unofficial
opposition parties, the moderate
nationalist Social Democratic and Labour
Party and the Ulster Unionists lost four
seats between them, sparking rumours
of leadership coups.
As with the rest of the United Kingdom,
voter apathy was the big winner in
Northern Ireland, a situation which benefited
the coalition trio.
The Green Party managed to halt the
meltdown trend sweeping the island,
with Northern party boss Steven Agnew
holding the sole seat.
Ironically, this election witnessed a remarkable
transformation in the policies
of the DUP and Sinn Féin, who now work
very comfortably together in partnership
government. It is a far cry from the 1980s
when DUP representatives would not
even share a TV studio with Sinn Féin for
debates.
This year marks the 30th anniversary
of the 1981 republican hunger strikes
when Bobby Sands MP and nine fellow
inmates starved themselves to death.
It should not be underestimated
the journey which the DUP and Sinn
Féin have completed since those
tense days. Both parties represented
the working class extremes in their
respective communities and were
linked to paramilitary groups.
Sinn Féin was the unapologetic
mouthpiece of the Provisional IRA; the
DUP was to the fore in the formation
of loyalist paramilitary groups, the
Third Force and Ulster Resistance.
But since the 2003 Assembly poll,
Sinn Féin and the DUP have eaten into
the respective Catholic and Protestant
middle classes, thereby moving surely,
but steadily into the political middle
ground – once the bastion of the SDLP
and UUP.
Sinn Féin 2011 resembles the now
defunct Irish Nationalist Party of
Eddie McAteer, which was the official
opposition in the original Stormont
Parliament axed in 1972. Ironically,
too, the DUP is a mirror image of the
party it was set up to oppose – the
liberalising Unionist Party of former
Northern Ireland Prime Minister
Terence O'Neill.
The new Assembly faces a potential
political thorn in the flesh with the
election of Jim Allister, the leader of
the hardline Traditional Unionist Voice
party. Apart from his seat in North
Antrim, his movement went into
meltdown across the Province.
He can either become an irritating
lone voice in the expected five-year
term of this new Assembly, or act as
a catalyst with the UUP and SDLP to
form a realistic official opposition to
the DUP, Sinn Féin, Alliance coalition.
Although Sinn Féin only increased its
Stormont tally by one seat, its earlier
Dáil election saw 14 TDs returned,
including party president Gerry Adams,
who gave up his Westminster and
Assembly seats for a Dáil seat in Co
Louth.
2011 has been Sinn Féin's best allisland
performance since the 1918
Westminster general election when the
movement won most of the Irish seats
when Ireland was entirely part of the
Empire.
This all-Ireland representation has
been a major political hammer to
batter the moderate nationalist,
Northern-based SDLP. It only has 14
MLAs to Sinn Féin's 29; a situation
which puts talk of a merger with Fianna
Fail back on the negotiating table.
The UUP dominated Northern politics
since its ruling Ulster Unionist Council
was formed in 1905 to combat the
threat of Home Rule. Now it is a party
at war with itself as rival liberal and
right-wing factions prepare for yet
another leadership tussle.
It can only go in one of two directions.
Either it must head towards the middle
ground currently occupied by the rival
DUP and merge with the Robinson-led
party. Or, it must re-position itself as a
Protestant working class, evangelical
right-wing Christian party, which
constantly calls the Executive coalition
parties to account.
