Hardliners triumph in Northern Ireland

Hardliners triumph in Northern Ireland

Saturday 29 November 2003, 2:45 Makka Time, 23:45 GMT

Hardliners on both sides of Northern Ireland's sectarian divide have 
overtaken moderates in its just concluded assembly polls.

Final results from Wednesday's election confirmed what British officials 
had privately called their "nightmare scenario" with Ian Paisley's 
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) emerging as the largest group in the 
legislature.

Among Catholic voters Sinn Fein, political ally of the Irish Republican 
Army guerrilla group, won favour over the moderate Social Democratic and 
Labour Party (SDLP), completing a sharp polarization of the political 
landscape in the British-ruled province.

London disappointed

London and Dublin had hoped a good showing for moderates would give fresh 
impetus to talks on restoring the assembly, suspended since October 2002 
when allegations of IRA spying brought down the fragile power-sharing 
coalition.

Instead, the extremes of Protestant unionism, which wants to preserve 
Northern Ireland's political union with Britain, and Catholic nationalism, 
which seeks a united Ireland, are in the ascendant and a lengthy period of 
direct rule from London looms.

The assembly was set up under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which aimed 
to end three decades of political and sectarian violence in which more than 
3,600 people died.

Paisley refuses to work with Sinn Fein, whom he calls "terrorists" and 
wants to re-negotiate the 1998 agreement he sees as giving too many 
concessions to Catholics.

"We have to go back to the drawing board," the victorious DUP leader said. 
"The Good Friday agreement has been over for a long time."

But both Britain and Ireland were quick to rule out any renegotiation of 
the agreement.

"In our firm view, the Good Friday Agreement remains the only viable 
political framework that is capable of securing the support of both 
communities in Northern Ireland," the two governments said in a statement.

Bitter defeat

The result was a bitter defeat for former First Minister David Trimble, 
head of the moderate Ulster Unionist Party (UUP).

As London and Dublin digested the results, the Bush administration 
expressed concern about their impact on the peace deal the US helped to 
broker in 1998.

"Of course everybody is concerned," National Security Adviser Condoleezza 
Rice said.

Final results showed the DUP held 30 seats in the 108-member assembly, the 
UUP 27, Sinn Fein 24 and the SDLP 18.


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