Northern Ireland Assembly Elections: May 2017?

[LabourJersey]

Isn't Stormont required to have a coalition government between catholic and protestant parties? If so, what does Sinn Fein get out of this?

[LabourJersey]

Isn't Stormont required to have a coalition government between catholic and protestant parties? If so, what does Sinn Fein get out of this?

Are you aware of the recent history of Northern Ireland, the civil war, the peace process and the very complex settlement that eventually ended it or not? What they get out of it is public £££ to give to their constituents so that they get re-elected and maintain their power base and careers, same as everyone else.

I understand the general gist of the Good Friday Agreement, and the power sharing agreements, but since then I find the whole structure of Stormont to be somewhat difficult to wrap my head around.

One question: why hasn't a First Minister been from Sinn Fein? Is that a political non starter in NI or is that more coincidence that anything?

[LabourJersey]

Isn't Stormont required to have a coalition government between catholic and protestant parties? If so, what does Sinn Fein get out of this?

Are you aware of the recent history of Northern Ireland, the civil war, the peace process and the very complex settlement that eventually ended it or not? What they get out of it is public £££ to give to their constituents so that they get re-elected and maintain their power base and careers, same as everyone else.

I understand the general gist of the Good Friday Agreement, and the power sharing agreements, but since then I find the whole structure of Stormont to be somewhat difficult to wrap my head around.

One question: why hasn't a First Minister been from Sinn Fein? Is that a political non starter in NI or is that more coincidence that anything?

Generally speaking, because the DUP has more seats (or rather, because unionist parties, as a whole, have more seats than nationalist parties). Sinn Fein (or another nationalist party) could have a First Minister only if nationalists won more seats than unionists, which can't happen at present because the demographics of Northern Ireland favor unionism (there are more Protestants than Catholics). In 20 or 30 years' time, that may be different, as Protestants skew older and Catholics younger (and a majority of under-30s are Catholics). In theory, it could also happen if voters stopped voting as strongly along demographic lines, or if a group like the Alliance or the Greens, which are nominally neither unionist nor nationalist (though most of their voters are Protestants), won away a large chunk of the vote from the unionist parties. But those are fairly unlikely scenarios.

Edit: Apparently the above is not the case, though it would make the most sense in my opinion. Instead, Sinn Fein would just have to win more seats than the DUP, even if nationalists overall won fewer seats than unionists. So, theoretically, if the SDLP fell apart, SF might gain the First Ministership while unionists still held a majority. As a practical matter, it is deeply unlikely that SF will be larger than the DUP in the near-term due to demographic polarization, barring a scenario such as the collapse of the SDLP (which would more likely result in a replacement party of more politically moderate Catholics than a mass migration to SF in any case).

That said, the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister are actually co-equal by law rather than one having more power or authority than the other, so the change would be merely cosmetic.

Thanks for explaining this, Tintrlvr.