Sinn Fein | historical mandate

In a historic result in the Northern Ireland assembly elections held this month, Irish Republican Sinn Féin – once the political arm of the Irish Republican Army – emerged as the single largest party with 29% of the first preference votes, The final seat tally in the election was still being counted as this article was printed. Elections in Northern Ireland are run on a single transferable vote model for 18 constituencies with multiple representatives. Despite the lack of a final result yet, it is quite clear that Sinn Féin will also emerge as the single largest party in terms of seats in the 90-member assembly.

The party is expected to nominate its deputy leader, Michelle O’Neill, as the ‘First Minister’ (head of government) to the Northern Ireland Executive. Since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which ended decades of sectarian violence between supporters of the British Union and those seeking reunification with the Republic of Ireland, the executive has been a “dumvirate”. It is co-governed by two officers, the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister, with equal legal powers, but the naming of the former has been a matter of prestige in Northern Ireland politics.

This is a major setback for the federalists who won every assembly election in the last 101 years, and especially for the Democratic Union Party (the largest unionist party) which had won in the last 19 years.

Does this mean that Irish nationalist and democratic socialist Sinn Féin has won a mandate to reconsider the Irish question? While there was the steepest net drop in the DUP’s vote share (-6.7%) since 2017, Sinn Fein achieved a rise of only 1.1%, with the surprise package being the centrist and liberal coalition party that took a neutral position. Sinn Féin itself took advantage of this by focusing on issues related to health care and the cost of living in the province.

The damage for the DUP was also combined with its rigid conservatism as more traditionally federalist voters preferred to support liberal and centrist forces such as the Coalition, even as Sinn Féin made nationalism its main electoral plank. With its economic emphasis on keeping as had won the followers.

border voting

But that said, this historic mandate for Sinn Féin would allow the party to push the envelope on the need for another “border election” – a vote on whether Northern Ireland would consider itself part of the UK or the Republic of Ireland – through Term, as its spokesperson acknowledged in the comments after the results were announced.

Today’s Sinn Féin was reorganized in 1970 after splitting from the original organization, which had participated in the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War in the early 20th century, and which had weakened significantly after the establishment of the Republic of Ireland. During the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland – a period of ethno-nationalist conflict between unionists and Irish nationalists – the party joined the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and was seen as the political wing of the militant organisation. Following the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and the creation of the Northern Ireland Assembly (also known as Stormont), the party has consistently received a large vote share in elections, but has never exceeded second place. The 2022 election results are a clear first for the party in Northern Ireland.

In the Republic of Ireland, Sinn Féin is already a dominant force in the opposition, having won 37 of the 160 seats in the del ireann (the lower house of parliament) in 2020, just one short of the ruling Fianna Fail, despite emerging from the ruling Fianna Fáil. As the largest party in terms of votes. Clearly, the party’s progressive agenda is allowing it to gain support in both the Republic and Northern Ireland, despite its past and an identity with ethno-nationalism.

Meanwhile, it is unclear whether the DUP will participate in a joint government with Sinn Féin, as per the Good Friday Agreement, which will be seen as a political second puzzle after these election results. In any case, the Irish question is already complicated by the “Northern Ireland Protocol” that was signed between the UK and the EU in the Brexit withdrawal agreement. The Protocol addressed the vexed question of Northern Ireland being part of the EU Single Market (and therefore complying with EU product standards) by allowing inspection and testing for products from the rest of the UK at Northern Ireland ports. permitted to. The border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

The Northern Ireland Protocol has been a curse for federalists, with the DUP’s first minister resigning earlier this year. The party has sought to scrap the protocol and may use it as a ploy to decide on the question of formation of a new government. The DUP’s stance would result in zero governance in the province affecting the people in the province.

It is clear that the Brexit issue has complicated the political equations in Northern Ireland as much as it has in Great Britain, with new contradictions emerging to challenge traditional politics in the country.