Sinn Fein eyes historic win in Northern Ireland election
- Voters caught in an economic crunch could propel the group – long linked to the paramilitary Irish Republican Army – to a landmark victory on Thursday
- Opinion polls show the Irish nationalist party could become the largest group in the assembly, and hold the first minister post in Belfast for the first time
Ever since Northern Ireland was founded as a Protestant-majority state a century ago, its governments have been led by unionist politicians who defined themselves as British.
But if opinion polls are right, an election on Thursday will see Sinn Fein, an Irish nationalist party that seeks union with Ireland, become the largest group in the 90-seat Northern Ireland Assembly. That would give Sinn Fein the post of first minister in the Belfast government for the first time.
It would be a milestone for a party long linked to the Irish Republican Army, a paramilitary group that used bombs and bullets to try to take Northern Ireland out of UK rule during decades of violence – in which the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary, as well as Protestant Loyalist paramilitaries, were also strongly involved.
It would also bring Sinn Fein’s ultimate goal of a united Ireland a step closer.
But that is not what the party – or voters – want to talk about in a campaign that has been dominated by more immediate worries: long waiting lists for medical care and the soaring cost of food and fuel.