On 5 May 2022, 63.52 per cent of all eligible voters in Northern Ireland went to the ballot box to indicate their preferences for candidates seeking election to the Northern Ireland Assembly, the province’s devolved legislature at the Stormont Estate in east Belfast. The fight was primarily between unionists, overwhelmingly Protestant loyalists who are committed to remaining within the United Kingdom, and nationalists, mostly Catholic republicans who favour a united Republic of Ireland. The nationalist Sinn Fein gained 29 per cent of first-preference votes, thereby winning 27 seats, while the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) came second, with 21.3 per cent of the vote and 24 seats. The cross-community Alliance Party was third, with 17 seats, followed by the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), with nine seats, and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) with eight. The hard-right Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) and the socialist People Before Profit each secured a seat, while the remaining two were snapped up by independents. Overall, this can be considered a historic election result for a province hitherto dominated by the unionists, ever since its formation in 1921, as a nationalist party takes over as the largest political party in Northern Ireland.
Michelle O’ Neill, vice president of Sinn Fein, an all-Ireland organisation, and its leader in Northern Ireland, automatically became eligible for the position of First Minister. O’ Neill, born into a staunchly republican family, succeeded her father, Brendan Doris, as a Sinn Fein member of the Dungannon Borough Council in County Tyrone. She was first woman mayor of Dungannon before her election as an MLA for Mid Ulster in 2007, serving as agriculture minister (2011-2015) and health minister (2015-2017) before becoming deputy First Minister (2020-2022).
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, leader of the DUP, who has graciously accepted the election results, would normally become deputy First Minister, but has yet to confirm that he will accept the position or nominate another DUP MLA in his place. The DUP leader has demanded “action” on the Northern Ireland protocol as a precondition of his participation in the power-sharing exercise. Unless the DUP signs up there can be no power-sharing executive, as the first and deputy first ministerial positions are a joint role, requiring equal commitment from both sides.
The Northern Ireland Assembly consists of ninety members (MLAs), comprising groups of five members for each of the 18 constituencies. The province uses a Single Transferable Vote system, under which each voter casts a single vote, ranking their chosen candidates in order of preference. This is a form of proportional representation, allowing the transfer of votes between candidates to ensure votes are not wasted. The power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive is a coalition, in which allocations between the parties are guided by the D’ Hondt mechanism. Ministerial posts in the 12 departments of government are shared out between the different parties according to a mathematical formula which considers the number of seats each party has won.
Sinn Fein (Ourselves Alone, or just Ourselves) is considered to have its origins in a policy presentation by Arthur Griffith, a newspaper editor, on 28 November 1905. The Sinn Fein League subsequently arose in April 1907 from a merger of Griffith’s Cumann na nGaedheal (Tribe of the Gaels), based in Dublin, and the Dungannon Clubs, organised by Bulmer Hobson, a Quaker, in Northern Ireland. Griffith advocated passive resistance as the means of achieving Irish self-rule, starting with withdrawal from the parliament at Westminster and followed by the setting up of a dual monarchy with Great Britain, with shared monarch but separate governments. The militarisation of Sinn Fein began in the aftermath of the unsuccessful Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916, which Griffith both disapproved of and did not participate in. The newly invigorated party went on to win 73 out of 105 Irish seats in the House of Commons in London in the December 1918 general elections. The newly elected Sinn Fein MPs chose not to take up their Westminster seats, instead setting up an alternative parliament in Dublin, the Dail Eireann. The Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed in London on 6 December 1921, ended the subsequent Irish War of Independence (January 1919-July 1921) and established the Irish Free State and the Province of Northern Ireland. The resulting division of Ireland was a bone of contention for the Irish republicans. Ratification of the treaty by the Dail on 7 January 1922, by 64 votes to 57, precipitated a split between pro-treaty supporters, led by Michael Collins, and anti-treaty supporters, led by Eamon de Valera. An 11-month-long Irish civil war then broke out on 28 June 1922, commencing with fighting between the new National Army and the Free State Army at the Four Courts garrison in Dublin, and was only ended by a ceasefire on 24 May 1923. In 1926, de Valera left to found Fianna Fail (Soldiers of Destiny), to which his followers flocked, thereby decimating the ranks of Sinn Fein. The rump Sinn Fein remained an insignificant force for decades, and split further in January 1970 into Official and Provisional wings, almost in parallel with the paramilitary IRA (Irish Republican Army), with the former favouring parliamentary politics and the latter committed to the armed struggle.
Sinn Fein re-emerged as a political force in the 1980s, gradually distancing itself from its presumed role as the political wing of the Provisional IRA. The IRA ceasefire of 19 July 1997 enabled Sinn Fein participation in the peace talks that led to the Good Friday Agreement. Sinn Fein members of parliament, or TDs (Teachta Dala) began taking up their seats in the Dail Eireann in Dublin from 1986 onwards, but the party’s MPs have consistently refused to enter the House of Commons in London, since this requires them to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen. Sinn Fein is currently the only political party that is active in all 32 counties of the island of Ireland, all of which send delegates to the annual conference, or Ard Fheis. It has steadily gained in political clout on either side of the border, and reached a position in Northern Ireland that would have been considered unthinkable in the 1980s and 1990s.
Northern Ireland has an estimated population of only 1.9 million, but the unrelenting sectarian violence from 1968 to 1998 that characterised ‘The Troubles’ has given it undue prominence in the history books. Despite the fragile peace that followed the Good Friday Agreement of 10 April 1998, there are lingering sectarian tensions, perpetuated by a combination of residential segregation, especially in urban working-class neighbourhoods; educational segregation in the form of Catholic and Protestant schools; social and cultural apartheid that keeps unionist and republican communities apart; and provocative annual rituals, such as the Orange Day parades each July, which only add fuel to the flames. The fault lines in Northern Ireland have been recently deepened by Brexit, which has pitted unionist residents, opposed to the Northern Ireland Protocol and the resulting trade barrier between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, against nationalists, who see an opportunity for the eventual reunification of Ireland.
Michelle O’ Neill promised an inclusive programme for all Northern Irish people during her campaign, having prioritised the economy, facing supply chain disruptions and rising inflation, and problems in the healthcare sector over calls for Irish unity and protection for the Irish language. The cost-of-living crisis dominated the campaign, alongside a housing shortage ; a struggling NHS, afflicted by a lack of doctors and nurses, long waiting times for elective treatments and in emergency departments; and government spending that has not kept up with demand. There is much concern among unionists that Sinn Fein will feel empowered to seek a border poll, or referendum, on Irish unity, just as the dust settles and in keeping with its long-term agenda of reuniting Ireland. Interesting times lie ahead, as unionism shrinks, splinters, and shifts further to the right, just as a leftward-looking Sinn Fein, increasingly distanced from the IRA and The Troubles of the past, is in the ascendancy.
Ashis Banerjee