Northern Ireland: Sinn Fein heading for historic victory in Thursday’s election

For a number of years, Sinn Féin’s leaders were barred from broadcasting in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Today, their presence is everywhere and the party of Northern Ireland, strengthened by the arrival of a new generation of executives, is aiming for a historic victory in Thursday’s election in the province of the United Kingdom.

Formerly a political showcase for the paramilitary IRA, Sinn Féin seems to be heading to become the First Party of the Northern Ireland National Assembly, unprecedented in the turbulent history of the British countryside.

Sinn Fein’s victory is the result of the arrival of a new generation of Northern Irishmen in political life following the Good Friday (1998) peace agreements that ended the bloody Troubles.

When the IRA turned its back on armed violence in the 1990s, Sinn Féin stepped up its presence on the political scene. In 2018, Jerry Adams, the historical leader of the party, left his place in the new generation embodied by Michelle O’Neill.

According to opinion polls, the 45-year-old now vice-president of a government in which Sinn Féin joins the Protestant, united DUP is heading towards a goal that was unthinkable a few years ago: to become Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from the Catholic ranks. , Republicans, Nationalists.

This is a turning point for the party itself, as well as for the United Kingdom and Ireland, a century after the founding of what Protestant Unionists call “a Protestant state for a Protestant people”: Northern Ireland.

The Unionists, deeply committed to Northern Ireland’s position within the United Kingdom, have always been in power since the creation of the British province in 1921, when the rest of the island was liberated from London.

Purchasing power over reunification

Sinn Féin, whose existence is summed up in the goal of reunifying Ireland, is approaching his dream. Even more so as the party leads in opinion polls and in the Republic of Ireland.

But less than the idea of ​​reunification, it is Sinn Fein’s left-wing attitude that attracts a newer electorate, angry at the housing and employment difficulties following the 2008 financial crisis, which hit Ireland hard.

“They have younger and more dynamic leaders, such as Mary Lou MacDonald and Michelle O’Neill, who have an effective voice and want to attack the status quo,” explains Deirdre Henan, a professor of social policy at the University of Ulster.

“After Brexit, people want stability and someone to deal with the cost of living crisis,” she said.

Electoral and demographic trends favor Catholics, nationalists, as the Protestant, unionist population ages faster, Deirdre Henan adds.

Michelle O’Neill herself, though a staunch Republican (her father was jailed for IRA-related activities), prioritizes purchasing power and access to social services.

Government and opposition

“It’s amazing that a political party is able to claim that it brings real change after being in power for 14 years,” said Deirdre Henan. “They are racing both as a government and as an opposition” because of the co-government.

If a Sinn Fein election victory is closer than ever, the decisive election victory had already taken place in Northern Ireland in 2007, with Martin McGuinness being elected Deputy Prime Minister, alongside DUP fundamentalist Ian Paisley.

The former IRA commander had set up a functional group with the Protestant preacher, refuting the predictions. The duo performed and got the nickname “Chuckle Brothers” (from the famous British comedy duo). Today, both are dead.

Of the 90 seats in the Northern Ireland National Assembly, Sinn Féin holds 26, tied with the DUP.

Even though it has distanced itself from its roots in armed struggle and social conservatism, Sinn Féin still does not recognize any kind of British sovereignty in Ireland and its seven members of parliament are refusing to take their seats in the House of Commons.

SOURCE: AMPE