A century after its creation, Northern Ireland could experience a political earthquake with the victory in local elections this week of the Republican party Sinn Fein, in favor of the reunification of the island.
The Unionists, mostly Protestant and viscerally attached to maintaining Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, have almost always been the main party since 1921.
Ahead of the May 5 ballot that renews the Local Assembly sitting in Belfast, the polls show a victory for Sinn Fein, once the political showcase of the paramilitaries of the IRA, the Irish Republican Army, with a six or seven point lead over the Unionists of the DUP.
If this result materializes at the polls, the left-wing Republican Party would take the post of Prime Minister.
It remains to be seen whether the DUP would agree to take on the role of Deputy Prime Minister and allow the local executive – currently paralyzed – to function, because, as provided for in the governance shared by the Good Friday agreement of 1998, which ended three decades of bloody conflict, one cannot function without the other.
In Newry, near the border with Ireland, a Sinn Fein placard proclaims that « Irish unity » is « the solution to Brexit ».
The UK’s exit from the EU, which Northern Irish people overwhelmingly voted against, has brought in its wake « a seismic shift in society », Sinn Fein Vice-President Michelle O’Neil recently said. .
– Post-Brexit tensions –
However, the party is tempering the prospect of a united Ireland in the near future, fearing a pushback effect on the centrist electorate and moderate unionists, who are more concerned about issues such as health, education or the cost of living.
In DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson’s Lagan Valley constituency, the red, blue and white colors of the British flag are proudly displayed.
The placards call on voters to put Mr Donaldson first on their ballot, as the Northern Irish electoral system allows voters to compose their own list.
The DUP has constantly urged London to abandon the Northern Irish protocol, a post-Brexit device which introduces customs controls on goods from Great Britain. The unionists see it as a threat to the place of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, combined with the progress of Sinn Fein.
Radically opposed to the protocol, the unionists of the DUP collapsed the head of the local executive with the resignation of Prime Minister Paul Givan at the beginning of February. His departure mechanically led to the downfall of Deputy Prime Minister Michelle O’Neill.
The British government repeats that it does not exclude anything in the event of failure of the negotiations with Brussels, including freeing itself from the provisions of the protocol.
The Good Friday agreement provides for an island-wide referendum on its reunification if there is popular support for it. But how to gauge this support has only been purposefully defined in a vague way. So the reading of a possible victory for Sinn Fein remains uncertain in this regard.
– The challenge of the center –
The DUP meanwhile argues that the threat exists and tries to mobilize its base.
Polls also point to a possible breakthrough from the non-aligned centre. Alliance party leader Naomi Long said it was « time for this pantomime around the posts of prime and deputy prime minister to end ».
Alliance and two other small parties have 11 of the 90 seats in the outgoing Assembly.
« If they come back with 16, 17, 18 » elected, « it could cause a fundamental renegotiation of the Good Friday agreement », explained to AFP David McCann, commentator for the political site Slugger O’Toole.
Thus Jacqueline Hirst, Unionist voter of always, living in the port city of Larne, intends to vote Alliance for the first time.
This 52-year-old official underlines to AFP her concern about the consequences of the protocol. « A lot of things in supermarkets are already disappearing. »
But the dysfunctions of the local executive due to the DUP-Sinn Fein confrontation worry him even more. « We have to talk to each other », she says, « it’s the only way to move forward ».
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