The divided voters of Northern Ireland held the fate of power-sharing in their hands yesterday as they decided who should lead -- or thwart -- a Catholic-Protestant administration.
For four-and-a-half years, politicians have failed to revive power-sharing, the central goal of the province's 1998 peace accord. That could be about to change following the election of a new Northern Ireland Assembly, a 108-member body with the power to form a cross-community Cabinet.
Polling stations across the territory of 1.7 million were opening for 15 hours yesterday to permit voters to pick candidates in order of preference. Ballots were to be counted and recounted several times today and tomorrow to determine winners in all 18 of Northern Ireland's six-seat constituencies.
PHOTO: EPA
Britain expects the newly elected assembly to appoint a full 12-member administration next week at Stormont Parliamentary Building in Belfast.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair says he wants to transfer control of government departments to Belfast hands by March 26. But if the assembly fails to meet the deadline, Blair has promised to disband it the following day, effectively giving up on a decade of toiling to deliver a power-sharing system.
Opinion polls and political analysts widely expect the opposite poles of political opinion -- the Protestants of the Democratic Unionist Party and the Catholics of Sinn Fein -- to strengthen their position as the two most popular parties. The top vote-winning party on each side of the community wins the right to claim joint leadership of the administration and most Cabinet posts.
But the Democratic Unionists have not committed to cooperating with Sinn Fein, which for decades supported the Irish Republican Army's (IRA) campaign of violence.
Both parties' moderate rivals -- the Protestants of the Ulster Unionists and the Catholics of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) -- appealed to voters to return to supporting them as the best way to ensure that power-sharing could function smoothly.
A moderate-led coalition governed Northern Ireland until October 2002, when it collapsed amid Protestant-Sinn Fein infighting over an IRA spying scandal inside government circles.
Since then, Democratic Unionist chief Ian Paisley has soared in Protestant popularity on a stubborn platform vowing never to cooperate with Sinn Fein unless the IRA disbands and Sinn Fein accepts British law and order.
The only official opinion poll during the four-week campaign put the Democratic Unionists on 24.9 percent support, Sinn Fein on 21.7 percent, the SDLP on 20.2 percent, and the Ulster Unionists on 15.7 percent.
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