The Northern Irish go to the polls this Thursday, May 5 to elect the 90 deputies of their local Assembly. Twenty-four years after the Good Friday Agreement that ended the civil war in 1998, Sinn Fein, a pro-reunification party, could come out on top for the first time in history.
With our correspondent in Newry, Laura Taouchanov
Polls on voting intentions give the nationalist party the winner with 26% of the vote, against 19% for its main opponent, the unionist DUP. For young Republican activists, reunification is only a matter of time.
In Newry, a small farming village, people traditionally vote for the Labor Party. But Michael and Tiarna, two 21-year-old Republican activists, didn’t have many people to convince as they went door to door to make sure residents were ready for the election.
” Of course I will vote for Sinn Fein! My boyfriend lives on the border and it’s only a matter of time this referendum, we all know it », Explains this resident of Newry.
Divisions that no longer make sense for a whole new generation of voters
“ Places like here have changed. Rural Ireland would never have been so Republican before, that’s great rejoices Michael. For Tiarna, Brexit is the perfect example of a hasty poll that failed and according to her, this referendum will have to be well anticipated.
” We were both born after the Good Friday Agreement, we didn’t experience the conflict. These divisions don’t mean anything to us anymore, so there’s a whole new generation of voterss,” says Michael.
For its part, Sinn Fein conducted a rather temperate campaign on reunification to convince the more moderate unionists.
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