Northern Ireland is poised for a new era following a historic vote that sees the Sinn Fein, with its historical ties to the Irish Republican Army, finding itself entitled to the first minister’s post in Belfast and for the first time since Northern Ireland was founded in 1921. For the first time once more, Sinn Fein, the Irish nationalist party, has won the largest number of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. The party has secured 27 of the assembly’s 90 seats. The pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) had 24, and the cross-community Alliance Party scored its strongest ever result with 17 seats, thus firmly establishing itself as a third pillar in the country’s political narrative. “Today ushers in a new era,” was the euphoric response of the Sinn Fein vice-president, Michelle O’Neill. “Irrespective of religious, political or social backgrounds, my commitment is to make politics work,” she said. She emphasized that it was imperative for Northern Ireland’s politicians to now come together to form an Executive ~ the devolved government of the territory ~ next week. 

If none can be formed within six months, the administration will collapse, triggering a new election and deepening uncertainty. “There is an urgency to restore an Executive and start putting money back in people’s pockets, to start to fix the health service. The people can’t wait,” she said. “The people have spoken, and our job is now to turn up. I expect others to turn up also,” she told reporters, stressing her new government must first tackle a cost-of-living crisis, ahead of the debate about Irish unity. “There is space in this state for everyone, all of us together’’. 

The Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, who is also leading a campaign to secede from the United Kingdom, was among the first to congratulate Sinn Fein in a Twitter post that hailed a “truly historic result”. “There’s no doubt there are big fundamental questions being asked of the United Kingdom as a political entity right now,” Ms Sturgeon said in an interview earlier on Saturday. The victory is a major milestone for Sinn Fein, which has long been linked to the IRA, the paramilitary entity that had used bombs and bullets to try to take Northern Ireland out of the UK’s control during decades of violence involving Irish Republican militants, Protestants loyalist paramilitaries and the UK’s army and police. A mandatory power-sharing system was put in place by the 1998 peace agreement that ended decades of Catholic-Protestant conflict. The tasks of the first minister and deputy first minister are split between the largest unionist party and the largest nationalist one. It remains open to question whether the Democratic Unionist Party will serve under a Sinn Fein first minister. In the longer term, as Ms Sturgeon points out, the debate on how long the kingdom can remain united will doubtless gather steam.