Sinn Féin will become the largest party in the Northern Ireland assembly

Sinn Féin is on course to become the biggest party in Stormont after a symbolic advance for Irish nationalism in the Northern Ireland assembly elections.

The party led the first-preference vote with 29%, which will position its vice president, Michelle O’Neill, to become the region’s prime minister, the first nationalist to hold office in a historic turnaround and a major blow. to unionism.

With transfer votes still counted on Friday night, it was clear that the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) had drastically lost its pre-eminence falling to 21.3% in the first preference vote. “A disaster for the DUP”, tweeted Tim Cairns, former special adviser to the party.

The other big winner in Thursday’s election was the centrist Alianza, which rose to 13.5%, putting it in third place and showing the growing influence of voters who eschew nationalist and unionist labels.

An expected boycott of the DUP could delay and possibly derail the formation of a new power-sharing executive unless Boris Johnson’s government renegotiates Northern Ireland’s protocol with the EU, as required by the DUP. That would cast doubt on O’Neill becoming prime minister, but it would not alter the deep psychological impact of a Sinn Féin victory.

“This place was set up over a century ago to ensure that Michelle O’Neill never became prime minister, so this is a great moment for equality,” Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said. of enthusiastic fans in Belfast. .

The result was seismic given that Northern Ireland was an entity created on the basis of a unionist majority, said Jon Tonge, a professor of politics at the University of Liverpool and an authority on the region. “A party that doesn’t want Northern Ireland to exist and refuses to even use the term Northern Ireland will become the biggest. It will not trigger a border survey, but it is an incremental step on the long road to Irish unity.”

Proportional representation was used in 18 five-member constituencies to elect 90 members of the assembly. Turnout was 63.6%, similar to the last assembly election in 2017. Sinn Féin looked set to top the 27 seats it won then, edging out the DUP, which was poised to lose several of its 28 seats, said Nicholas Whyte, a psephologist and expert on elections from Northern Ireland.

The Alliance is likely to double its previous total of eight seats, largely at the expense of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), the moderate nationalist Social Democratic and Labor Party (SDLP) and the Green Party, which has hemorrhaged support. The transfers will determine the final seats and counting is expected to continue on Saturday.

Voters ranked the cost of living and healthcare as their top concerns, but the campaign was dominated by unionists’ anger over Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit protocol, which puts a trade border in the Irish Sea. , and the contest between Sinn Féin and the DUP. for the post of prime minister.

That squeezed the UUP and SDLP and allowed the Alliance to harvest the growing number of voters in the center expressing frustration with traditional orange/green tribalism.

Unionists took solace in the fact that overall support for unionist parties marginally outstripped support for nationalist parties. Opinion polls show strong support for Northern Ireland to remain in the UK, but Sinn Féin hopes to build momentum towards a referendum on Irish unity, a goal fueled by the party’s growing popularity in the Republic of Ireland, where, under McDonald, he leads the opposition. in Parliament in Dublin.

“It’s a great moment that says without a doubt that life has changed in the North, things have changed in Ireland and we are only going forward and we will never go back,” McDonald said.

Many unionists blame the DUP for the protocol, which they fear will weaken Northern Ireland’s position in the UK, and some have switched to a right-wing rival, the Traditional Unionist Voice. However, Jeffrey Donaldson, the MP and leader of the DUP, regained some support by portraying his party as a bulwark against a Sinn Féin prime minister.

Donaldson said he would not bring the DUP into the executive, which cannot be formed without his party, unless protocol is replaced, pressing Downing Street to amend the Brexit deal to avoid a protracted crisis in Northern Ireland.

Alliance leader Naomi Long urged the DUP to “stop creating instability and start governing” and accept the will of the electorate.

Since 2007 there has been a DUP Prime Minister and a Sinn Féin Deputy Prime Minister. Both positions have equal power, but the most prestigious title has become an indirect test of strength. There have been calls to change the titles to co-prime minister and revise the Good Friday deal-era power-sharing rules, which did not anticipate the rise of a centrist political force.