Sinn Fein Becomes Largest Party in Northern Ireland Local Elections

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NORTHERN IRELAND LOCAL ELECTIONS: Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein made sweeping gains in Northern Ireland's local elections, repeating its success from last year's assembly elections.

Sinn Fein Becomes Largest Party in Northern Ireland Local Elections
Sunday, 21 May 2023 06:26 AM EDT
Associated Press via Newsmax

Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein made sweeping gains in Northern Ireland's local elections, repeating its success from last year's assembly elections, when it became the largest party for the first time.

With counting completed late Saturday, Sinn Fein, which seeks unification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland, took 144 of 462 local government seats. Its main rival, the Democratic Unionist Party, captured 122 seats, while the centrist Alliance Party had 67.

Michelle O’Neill, Sinn Fein’s vice president, said the results were “momentous.”

She added that her party's success was a message from voters that Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government, which has been paralyzed for over a year, must get back to business.

The semi-autonomous Belfast government has been suspended since the DUP, which wants to keep Northern Ireland part of the United Kingdom, walked out more than a year ago to protest a post-Brexit customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. ...

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Sinn Féin, (Irish: “We Ourselves” or “Ourselves Alone”) political party that long was widely regarded as the political wing of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), though from at least the 1990s both organizations emphasized their separateness. Organized in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Sinn Féin strives for an end to the political partition of the island of Ireland, embodying an ideology that is variously characterized as nationalism and Republicanism. Sinn Féin advocates democratic socialism, but some observers question the accuracy of its frequent portrayal as a party of the radical left. ... Encyclopedia Brittanica