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Ulster chief says peace still possible

The British governor of Northern Ireland said on Saturday it was still possible to revive a Catholic-Protestant administration, despite the electoral triumph of a Protestant party opposed to the peace pact that proposed power-sharing.

Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy, who was one of the key negotiators behind the landmark Good Friday accord in 1998, said the rise of Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party would make the effort much more difficult -- but not impossible.

"The agreement is not dead, because most people in Northern Ireland want it to work. I am not underestimating the difficulties, but I am not unhopeful that we can make progress," said Murphy, who met separately on Saturday with leaders of the other three major Northern Ireland parties. He planned to meet today with the Democratic Unionists.

Results from Wednesday's election to the Northern Ireland Assembly gave the Democratic Unionists 30 seats, up 10 from the last election in 1998. The Ulster Unionists -- traditionally the major Protestant party, but bitterly divided by the peace deal -- retained 27, down one.

Changes were almost as dramatic on the Irish Catholic side of the house. Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army-linked party reviled by many Protestants, stormed ahead of its moderate rivals from the Social Democratic and Labor Party. Sinn Fein won 24 seats, up six, while the SDLP retained 18, down six.

The leaders of both Catholic-backed parties, Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams and the SDLP's Mark Durkan, appealed to Murphy to convene the newly elected Assembly immediately.

Durkan, speaking outside Murphy's official Hillsborough Castle residence, said Britain "must not let the DUP hold back progress or turn the clock back on change."

Adams agreed, saying Paisley shouldn't be allowed to exercise "a veto over progress."

But Murphy said convening the Assembly now would only cause more problems. He noted the lawmakers' first legal duty would be to elect the top two administration figures -- one each from the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein.

Under terms of the Good Friday accord, those two top figures must be elected with support from majorities on both sides of the Assembly. While both Catholic parties back power-sharing, that majority no longer exists on the Protestant side.

If the Assembly deadlocked over the matter, he said, "automatically we [would] have to call another election. Now clearly there's no appetite for calling another election straightaway."

Adams said his party accepted Ian Paisley's mandate, but he ridiculed the Democratic Unionists for saying they wanted to negotiate a new form of Northern Ireland administration but wouldn't talk to his party.

"They say they want to renegotiate. Who are they going to renegotiate with if not with us?" Adams said.
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