Moderates lose ground in Ulster

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, JUNE 9. In a setback to the peace process in Northern Ireland, moderates have lost ground in Thursday's elections, giving boost to hardliners among both the Protestant unionists and Catholic republicans. There were fears of a more confrontationist phase in the province's sectarian politics following a discernible shift to the right.

The most disturbing feature of the results, announced today, was the gains made by the Democratic Ulster Unionists (DUP) which is strongly opposed to the Good Friday Agreement. It took away three seats from Mr. David Trimble's moderate Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) raising its Westminster tally to six in its best-ever performance in a parliamentary election.

For the first time, the UUP has become the weakest unionist force, raising doubts about the fate of Mr. Trimble who himself had a narrow electoral escape. The margin of his victory was so narrow that his opponents demanded a recount, and though he held on to the seat it was clearly bad news for him personally and as well as for his party. He was jostled and jeered at the counting centre with his opponents asking him to resign.

In his own party, the hardliners were emboldened by DUP's performance to press Mr. Trimble to take a more tough line or walk out of the Good Friday Agreement saying his ``soft'' stand was pushing more and more UUP supporters into the DUP's arms.

Similarly, in the republican camp, the hardline Sinn Fein gained at the expense of Mr. John Hume's friendlier SDLP, overtaking it as the principal nationalist party. The SDLP's most embarrassing loss was the defeat of one of its leading figures, Ms. Brid Rodgers, who lost to a relatively unknown Sinn Fein candidate. ``The phenomenal rise in the vote of Sinn Fein means it looks certain to supplant the SDLP as the main voice of Northern Irish nationalism'', one newspaper said.

It was a bruising day for the pro-Good Friday Agreement groups which were suddenly under pressure. The DUP chief, Rev. Ian Paisley, demanded that Mr. Trimble resign, and declared that the results vindicated his party's stand that the UUP had ``betrayed'' Ulster. ``The message is for Mr. Trimble to quit: he has destroyed our country by making concession after concession to the IRA'', he said.

Another DUP leader said the outcome was a verdict against the agreement and those who supported it. ``It is a verdict on UUP'', she said. The Sinn Fein claimed that the hammering it gave to SDLP showed that the people were with it (Sinn Fein). ``People have endorsed our vision of tomorrow - an Ireland free from the shackles of the union with Britain'', Mr. Adams declared. He reminded the Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, of ``unfinished business'' - a reference to his party's demand for demilitarisation and police reforms which Sinn Fein maintains were key elements of the agreement. It has accused London of not delivering on its promises.

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