The
London and Dublin broadsheets have been full of
articles which claimed the elections for the Stormont
Assembly, which took place in the north of Ireland
on the 7th March, were a victory for the Democratic
process. Some even went as far as to claim that
the DUP and SF, having emerged from the polls
as the two largest parties within the Assembly,
'had seen off any threat from extremists'. (The
Guardian went as far as to proclaim in a headline,
"Voters rebuff extremists and give hope for
Stormont Assembly" [9.3.07.])
Those
of us who have followed the antics of the leaders
of these two organizations, Gerry Adams and Ian
Paisley may shudder just a little at this, for
in their past practice they have both shown scant
regard for Democratic niceties, accountability
or practice. Indeed if they had, the six counties
may not have descended into what can only described
as an in-terminal nightmare of death and destruction,
which lasted for over four decades. Whilst neither
men can be blamed for creating the faultline that
has been inherent within the northern Statelet
since its inception, they both shoulder a great
responsibility for violently driving the sectarian
wedge into the shifting plates, and thus splintering
the two communities asunder.
Whilst
the end of para-military violence is to be welcomed,
any Stormont Administration which emerges out
of the recent election will be far short of being
a democratic government —as most who live
in Western Democracies understand the term—
and to pretend otherwise is to display an absolute
contempt for the Irish people. What we will have
is an elected sectarian dictatorship. An elected
sectarian dictatorship that came into being due
to the British Government and their Unionist acolytes'
desire to end the PIRA insurgency whilst maintaining
the status quo. They have achieved this by covering,
with a charade of democratic foliage, the right
of the Unionist minority within Ireland to have
a permanent veto on the political reunification
of the Irish Nation. That the SF leadership were
enticed into supporting this by the offer of a
Ministerial limo and the trappings of a departmental
brief is bewildering —not only for Mr Adams'
Republican critics, but also his friends, although
many of the latter have now convinced themselves
that when the time is right, Mr Adams will pull
a rabbit out of his hat which will still make
it possible for reunification to take place by
2016, as he once predicted with such certainty.
I fear they are in for a bitter disappointment.
In reality all the SF Ministries will contain
will be a giant rubber stamp with a crown on its
head, and a cash point from which the SF 'ministers'
will be allowed to finance a small number of pork
barreled projects to keep the boyos quiet in their
retirement.
The whole point about a democratic system is when
one tires of the government of the day, you vote
them out. Not in the north of Ireland it seems,
for there the best you can hope for is a form
of Ministerial musical chairs. If the electorate
so decides, true, the First Minister can be replaced
if their party is no longer the lead Unionist
party, but it is only to be a shuffling of the
Ministerial pack, for were he to be dismissed
by the electorate, a politician of a similar religious
hue and political persuasion would take his place.
(*It is always a he with the Unionists.)
Far from the departing First Minister being on
their way to the opposition benches; if he so
wished, he would simply take up another Ministerial
seat further down the political food chain.
There
will be no opposition within the Stormont Assembly,
which, for example, can pass a motion of no confidence;
even if there were it would be pointless, for
the same people from the same parties would be
nominated for ministerial office all over again.
True, a few MLAs from the minority Alliance and
Green Party, plus an independent member of the
Assembly have had the common decency to come together
in the hope of performing the task of some sort
of opposition, a duty which in any functioning
democracy worthy of the name the main opposition
party would have filled, but 9 out of 108 MLA's
will never be able to hold the executive to account.
From
the UK State's point of view, things could not
have turned out better. They will have in place
an administration in the north of Ireland which
has all the trappings of a Democracy for the gullible
to be enticed by, and in reality it will have
none of the powers of such an institution for
the reasons I have aforementioned and London controls
the purse strings. Good or bad, whatever this
mockney Stormont administration does, all the
main northern political parties will be accountable,
for 'cabinet' responsibility will prevail. Thus
if the DUP ministers enact some paltry piece of
legislation the Shinners disagree with, they can
hardly object and remain in the Stormont administration.
The Shinners, having spent such energies in getting
into the Stormont system, are not going to expose
its short comings and bring it down around their
ears (even if the GFA allowed them to, which it
doesn't). So they will sit fast in their ministerial
seat, neutered as the British government always
intended, whilst the real show goes on in London,
with an odd encore from the Dublin players.
Peace
is good, but peace without honour can never be
the end game.
