Party for Unity with Ireland
Sinn Fein wins first local election in Northern Ireland
05/21/2023 11:51 am
Historic victory in Northern Ireland: the Catholic-Republican Sinn Fein won the local elections for the first time. The party advocates unification with the EU neighboring country Ireland. However, Northern Ireland is currently politically paralyzed.
For the first time a party has won the most votes in the local elections in Northern Ireland, which aims to unify the British province with the EU neighboring country Ireland. According to the electoral commission, the Catholic-Republican party Sinn Fein secured 144 of the 462 seats. That was 39 more than in the previous election in 2019.
Sinn Fein vice president Michelle O’Neill spoke of a “significant” success. The party, which was once considered the political arm of the terrorist group IRA, had already become the strongest force for the first time in the regional parliamentary elections. The largest Protestant Unionist force, the DUP, received 122 mandates, the same number as in 2019. DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson acknowledged that supporters of the union with Great Britain now have to learn lessons from the result.
A good 1.3 million people in the smallest part of Britain were eligible to vote in the vote last Thursday. Voter turnout was 54 percent. Because of the complicated voting system, the counting took more than two days. Northern Ireland is currently politically paralyzed. The DUP has been boycotting the mandatory unity government with Sinn Fein in the regional parliament for almost a year.
The reason is that the party rejects the Brexit rules for the province that Britain and the EU had agreed on. Unionists fear this will further cut off Northern Ireland from London.