Posted on 03/08/2007 2:16:22 PM PST by presidio9
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams was re-elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly as Sinn Fein appeared on course to remain the major Catholic-backed party in the British territory, according to results Thursday.
Adams, 58, topped the voting in his longtime power base of Catholic west Belfast. He was among the first declared winners for the 108-member assembly following Wednesday's election to find out which Protestant and Catholic parties will control the assembly and hold the key to revived power-sharing in the territory.
Sinn Fein activists cheered wildly in the major ballot-counting center, the King's Hall conference center in south Belfast, as Adams took the winner's podium. Nearby activists from Protestant parties booed or stood stony-faced.
The vote-counting is likely to take two days before all winners are declared. Northern Ireland's complex system of proportional representation allows voters to pick candidates in order of preference, requiring ballots to be counted several times.
It's 40 out of 50 seats declared. I assume they'll each pick up a lot more seats as the results come in.
Unless you are specifically adressing me, I would appreciate it if you removed my name from the inbox in posts like this. I love Ireland AND I love the UK.
Yeah, would you believe I was actually showing restraint when I referred to her as an unclean female canine? Her screenname had a certain four-letter possibility that I refrained from using! ;)
But it is funny imagining you running around Mayo wearing a bowler!
I can imagine wearing it to work - sawdust would fall from the rim every time I'd stoop! :-P
Because they are eejits.
I take it you are a Protestant?
Did you not see the vicious flame war on this thread? I blew a gasket because someone thought I was b/sing when I said I was a Catholic. Why, pray tell, should an Irish opponent of the IRA be necessarily a Protestant? Don't you get what's being said on this thread? The overwhelming majority of Irish Catholics south of the border, and seemingly, a still significant minority north of the border despise the IRA - because we see them exactly for what they are - terrorist scum!
I can imagine there were people from the UK in 1776 that had a similar attitude about the american colonies and people like Sam Adams, Nathan Hale, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson.
What do you think?
They have picked up some more - the SDLP are looking bad, it's kinda their own fault, former SDLP leader John Hume , a Sacred Cow of Irish politics, insisted that a peace settlement must involve the IRA, such an equivocating position cost his party electorally in the long run, voters always turned to the SDLP as an exclusively democratic alternetive to the IRA.
Why do you people always seem to be stuck in a time-warp?
The IRA are murdering bastards, end of story!
You just can't give a direct answer.
It eaves one to speculate your position.
"BTW, I am a Catholic living the Republic."
just as Ted Kennedy and John Kerry are Catholics living in Mass.
> The OO is a legal organization. The UVF is a terrorist
> organization.
And that parallel doesn't work for Sinn Féin and the IRA, because....?
What are you talking about? My position is I unequivically oppose the IRA, how could I be any clearer on that???
"The assertion is irrelevant. Mr. Adams was lawfully elected by a majority of voters. We extol the virtues of democracy, and yet when democratic actions occur that do not meet our liking, we denounce the democratic process? There's no logic in that position."
I agree with you.
Piss off, Ted Kennedy is American, I'm Irish, I now what I'm talking about, you who attacked me because I hate The Wolfe Tones.
Why should a terrorist organisation be allowed to participate in elections?
And that parallel doesn't work for Sinn Féin and the IRA, because....?
The Orange Order are not the UVF, Sinn Fein ARE the IRA, get it now??
No response from you, I see.
Unless you're willing to assert that, what 40%??, of the voters in the North are IRA, I say you're wrong about the second part.
Those who choose to vote Sinn Fein yesterday choose to vote for a party that glorifies and benefited from their sadistic violence and hatred.
It's the truth, some here on FR can't see that!
Democracy has created moderation in N. Ireland and well as Iraq.
What are you talking about?? They voted for a terrorist organisation.
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