Will the electoral shift towards hard-liners on both sides of the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland prove the death of devolution, asks Alistair Alexander "Just when you think you've got the answer, they change the question," is how the great Victorian Prime Minister William Gladstone was thought to view the issue of Ireland. Over a century later his current successor, Tony Blair, would probably scarcely agree more. After over five years of peace in Northern Ireland since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the peace process in a conflict that engulfed Northern Ireland for much of the 20th century is all but stalled. Signed in 1998, the Northern Ireland Agreement will remain one of Tony Blair's greatest political achievements. By finely balancing Catholic hopes of representation and stronger links with the Republic of Ireland against Protestant fears of diluting the "Union" between the province and the United Kingdom, the agreement effectively ended the bloody Irish conflict. But the initial euphoria of the peace process has long since given way to stalemate. The result from last week's elections threatens to plunge the already deadlocked peace process into even deeper crisis. The main sticking point has been the slow progress on IRA disarmament. Unionists regard the republican IRA's tentative steps towards decommissioning their weapons as woefully inadequate, while Sinn Fein, the Republicans' main political party, reaps the benefits of political settlement -- or so the Unionists claim. Unionists thereafter withdrew support from Northern Ireland's devolved government leaving the peace process effectively suspended and new elections unavoidable. And voting, like virtually every other aspect of Northern Irish society, is divided along sectarian lines. Although the swing to hard-liners in both communities was smaller than many feared, it has proven to be decisive. The fiercely pro-British Protestants, who have a narrow majority of the population, saw the most dramatic, if not the largest, shift. The reluctantly pro-agreement Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) was eclipsed by the emphatically anti-agreement Democratic Unionists (DUP). The DUP's gain of 10 seats gave them 30 seats to the UUP's 27 in the 108-seat Northern Ireland Assembly. As a result, the UUP's David Trimble, who gingerly nudged the Protestant community into a historic political compromise, will be replaced as the senior voice of Unionists by the virulently anti-Catholic firebrand, Dr Ian Paisley. The apocalyptic rhetoric of Dr Paisley sounds as if it is from another century, which, of course, it is: hard-line Unionists trace their culture back to the 17th century and their values and language have remained there ever since. And for all his fondness for biblical references, the phrase "blessed are the peacemakers" appears to have escaped the good doctor's attention. But this is, after all, the very same man who had once to be forcibly removed from the European Parliament for denouncing the Pope as the anti-Christ -- while the Pope himself was speaking. For Dr Paisley, the Good Friday Agreement was a diabolical betrayal of Unionists by the British government. Not only will Dr Paisley refuse to enter any power-sharing arrangement with Catholics, he will also want to renegotiate the agreement -- in other words, destroy it. For Nationalists, the electoral shift between the two main parties was, if anything, more pronounced than with the Unionists. The moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and the Republican Sinn Fein effectively swapped places in the assembly's pecking order. Whereas the SDLP had 24 seats to Sinn Fein's 18, last week's elections saw their positions reversed. Sinn Fein's advance underlined its astonishing transformation from being the political wing of the paramilitary IRA to becoming the pre-eminent party of Northern Ireland's Catholics. Only 15 years ago, at the peak of the IRA bombing campaign on the UK mainland, Sinn Fein's leader, Gerry Adams, held much the same place in the British psyche that Osama Bin Laden holds now. But after declaring the conflict over and apologising profusely for the suffering it caused, Adams and his party have proven to be highly effective negotiators and the staunchest supporters of the peace process. And crucially, they now offer a clear vision of uniting the island of Ireland through political rather than military means. But for the SDLP, the election was a particularly bitter blow. Their former leader, John Hume, was widely regarded as the principal architect of the Good Friday Agreement. And having worked so assiduously over so many years to bring Sinn Fein into the political process, they now find themselves overshadowed by their former junior partners. In addition, the rise of Sinn Fein alongside the DUP's comeback has dire consequences for the delicate political geometry of the Northern Ireland Assembly. To ensure equal representation of both communities in any Northern Ireland government, a Unionist, ie Protestant, first minister must be appointed alongside a Nationalist, ie Catholic, deputy. With the DUP refusing to talk face-to-face with Sinn Fein, let alone join a government with them, any new deal to restore devolved government is plainly out of the question -- in the short-term at least. The situation may not be as bleak as it first appears. For one thing, the increase in the anti-agreement Unionist vote was far smaller than expected. And for another, Dr Paisley, at 77 years old is a fading force in his own party. The main body of party affairs is now managed by a clutch of young, ambitious and pragmatic politicians who distance themselves from their aging leader. Dr Paisley was noticeably kept away from the media as the election results were announced. Many suspect that the younger DUP officials will broker some kind of deal rather than squander their electoral gains through intransigence. The Good Friday Agreement is up for review soon anyway, and a few minor concessions might be enough to bring the DUP on board, despite the objections of their leader. Even if a deal is not reached -- still the most likely outcome -- all is not lost. After a prolonged period of stasis, new elections next year would probably see the moderate UUP replace the DUP as the largest Unionist Party, putting the chance of a new deal back on the table. For Unionists the results are still doubly worrying, however. Not only are Republicans becoming the dominant force of Catholic politics, but with Unionists hopelessly divided, they are fast becoming the dominant force in Northern Ireland as a whole. But the main result of the election is to further underline how far Northern Ireland has moved away from the conflict of only a few years ago. However reluctant Republicans are to disarm, it is inconceivable that they will return to armed conflict. After all, they have gained far more from the last elections than they ever did through terrorism.
