Sinn Fein surges in tight Northern Ireland elections

The pro-British Democratic Unionist Party narrowly remained Northern Ireland's largest party after edging nationalists Sinn Fein by a single seat in a snap election called after the government collapsed.


It was the closest nationalists, traditionally backed by Catholics, have ever come to becoming the biggest party in the Protestant-majority province. Unionist candidates, who tend to be favoured by Protestants, captured less than half of the seats for the first time.

Voters turned out in their highest numbers for two decades in the first regional election in the UK since its vote to leave the European Union as nationalists who favour a united Ireland and unionists who want the province to remain British jostled for influence.

Final results from Thursday's assembly elections showed the DUP had won 28 seats and Sinn Fein 27 in the province's semi-autonomous 90-seat parliament after all ballots were counted on Saturday.

"Let us now move forward with hope, hope that civility can return to our politics," outgoing first minister Arlene Foster of the DUP told supporters after her re-election on Friday.

"There is work to be done to quickly mend the relationship which has been frayed by the discord of this election."

Sinn Fein's leader Michelle O'Neill told journalists it was an "amazing day" as her party benefited from a jump in turnout to 65 percent, the highest since the first elections held after the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement.
   [aljazeera.com]
4/3/17