101 years after Ireland’s independence, there is now the possibility of a reunified Ireland sometime in the future.
Sinn Fein hails 'new era' as it wins Northern Ireland vote
The Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein has won the largest number of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly for the first time
By SYLVIA HUI and PETER MORRISON
BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- The Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, which seeks unification with Ireland, hailed a “new era” Saturday for Northern Ireland as it captured the largest number of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly for the first time in a historic win.
With almost all votes counted from Thursday's local U.K. election, Sinn Fein secured 27 of the Assembly’s 90 seats. The Democratic Unionist Party, which has dominated Northern Ireland’s legislature for two decades, captured 24 seats. The victory means Sinn Fein is entitled to the post of first minister in Belfast — a first for an Irish nationalist party since Northern Ireland was founded as a Protestant-majority state in 1921.
The centrist Alliance Party, which doesn’t identify as either nationalist or unionist, also saw a huge surge in support and was set to become the other big winner in the vote, claiming 17 seats.
While the Sinn Fein win signals a historic shift that shows diminishing support for unionist parties, it’s far from clear what happens next because of Northern Ireland's complicated power-sharing politics and ongoing tussles over post-Brexit arrangements.
Under a mandatory power-sharing system created by the 1998 peace agreement that ended decades of Catholic-Protestant conflict, the jobs of first minister and deputy first minister are split between the biggest unionist party and the largest nationalist one.
The voters in Northern Ireland were more focused on the rapidly rising cost of living, than Irish reunification. Sound familiar? Voters all over Europe are stressed by the rising costs of living since the invasion of Ukraine.
