By Lisa Macdonald
Sinn Féin's results in three elections within five weeks mark a significant strengthening of the republican movement in Ireland.
The wave of successes began with the British elections on May 1, in which a swing of 10% from the Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP) to Sinn Féin in nationalist areas resulted in two Sinn Féin MPs being elected to Westminster for the first time. Party president Gerry Adams won the seat of West Belfast by 8000 votes, and Martin McGuinness won Mid Ulster by 6000.
Then on May 21, Sinn Féin's vote in the Six County local elections in northern Ireland increased by 5% from its 1993 result to reach an unprecedented 17%. Exit polls indicate that the majority of young people voted for Sinn Féin.
Sinn Féin won 74 seats in the north, the biggest net gain of any party. This includes 13 in Belfast, almost double the number won by the SDLP and ending the Unionists' outright control of this key council.
Indicating their panic at the prospects of a Catholic mayor for the first time in the city's 387-year history, the outgoing majority Unionists at Belfast City Hall moved a motion to bolt the building's main door as celebrating republicans crowded into the hall.
In the second major centre, Derry, the SDLP, which had control of the council, was stunned by a 50% increase in Sinn Féin's vote. A similar three-seat swing to the republicans ended the SDLP's control in Newry and Mourne.
Reflecting a political polarisation in northern Ireland, the small loyalist parties, the PUP and the UDP, also made significant gains at the local government level, taking support away from the established Unionist parties.
Despite the obviously strong public support for Sinn Féin, in council chambers throughout the six counties the other parties have combined to exclude it. One of the main culprits has been the SDLP.
In Omagh, Derry, Newry and Mourne on June 3, the SDLP denied Sinn Féin the top council posts that its electoral support warranted, saying that the SDLP would not recognise Sinn Féin's legitimate claim to such posts until there was an IRA cease-fire.
Exposing this stance as a dishonest political manoeuvre, Sinn Féin has pointed out that even when there was an IRA cease-fire, the SDLP still denied Sinn Féin posts. It called on the other parties to "accept the legitimacy and validity of our vote as we accept yours".
Following its strong result in the Six County elections, in the national elections on June 7 CaoimhghÃn O Caoláin won the border constituency of Cavan-Monaghan to become the first Sinn Féin member elected to the Irish parliament on a straight Sinn Féin ticket since 1957.
O Caoláin's 19% share of the vote almost tripled the party's 7.6% in the 1992 26 County elections and was thousands of votes ahead of the rest of the field. The overwhelming support for O Caoláin revealed a further strengthening of the party's base in the area, which elected all eight Sinn Féin candidates in the 1994 local elections.
In many of the other electorates it contested, Sinn Fein's vote doubled and tripled, and it narrowly missed out on seats in Kerry North and in Tallaght in Dublin.
In a further indication of the growing anti-establishment vote in Ireland, Joe Higgins, the Socialist Party (formerly Militant Labour) candidate for the four-seat electorate of Dublin West, came first with 8094 first preference votes. Higgins' victory in this large working-class electorate reflected his strong leadership of the successful campaign against water charges last year.
The main electoral result was the collapse of support for the SDLP, which has only half the number of seats it won in 1992. Although Prime Minister John Bruton's Fine Gael increased its vote and won 54 seats, the collapse of the SDLP meant that the "Rainbow Coalition" government formed in 1994 was ousted.
Fianna Fáil won 77 seats in the 166-seat parliament; its current coalition partner, the Progressive Democrats, won four, half their previous number. Without an absolute majority, Fianna Fáil leader Bertie Ahern will have to strike a deal with independent, Green Party, Socialist Party, Sinn Féin and/or minor party MPs if he is to be sworn in as prime minister on June 26.
Sinn Féin campaigned in the Irish elections as a voice for "the rights and aspirations of the excluded and of those who wish to see a new Ireland truly free from outside interference". The pre-election editorial of the party's weekly paper An Phoblacht/Republican News stated:
"Those who voted for Sinn Féin in recent elections in the Six Counties were voting for progress towards peace with justice. They were also voting for equality, without which there can be neither peace nor justice ... The election of Sinn Féin TDs [MPs] would signal the beginning of a new era and send a shiver down the spine of the cosy cartel of establishment parties in Leinster House."
Since winning a seat, Sinn Féin has announced three criteria for its participation in the government: that the interests of Sinn Féin's constituents be defended, that the peace process be advanced and that measures be taken to eradicate poverty.
Commenting on Sinn Féin's result, Adams said: "As the only party of the left standing on an independent platform, Sinn Féin entered this election committed to real social, economic and political change; to eliminating poverty; and to offering an effective alternative to the corruption and failed politics which have been a feature of political life here in recent years. This is a platform to which the general public has responded very positively ... The new Irish government and the British government must respect the mandate which the electorate has given Sinn Féin over three elections."
But the Republicans' success has done more than send a shiver down the Unionists' and social democrats' spines. It has provoked howls of fury. Ulster Unionist MP Ken Maginnis and SDLP deputy leader Seamus Mallon accused the British government of assisting Sinn Féin's election campaign by holding talks with the party on election day.
Maginnis also said that visits on June 4 by Britain's governor in Ireland with nationalist residents' groups had boosted republican support and suggested that these "infringements of the electoral system" were grounds for declaring the whole election null and void. Adams dismissed Maginnis's outburst as a product of being "unable to accept the legitimacy, validity and popularity of the Sinn Féin message".
Ahern has told the media that he will not, in government, deal with Sinn Féin until the IRA declares a cease-fire. This statement follows the barring of a Sinn Féin delegation from multiparty talks in Stormont, Belfast, on June 3.
Sinn Féin has been banned from the talks since they started more than a year ago. However, new British Prime Minister Tony Blair has had difficulty justifying Sinn Féin's exclusion since it received a record mandate for negotiations in the May 1 election.
The party's stronger results in the Six County and 26 County elections since then put even greater pressure on the British and Irish governments to accept Adams' statement that efforts to build the next step in the peace process must be redoubled and that "Sinn Féin has a right to be involved on the same basis as everybody else.
"Sinn Féin is a truly national party, the only all-Ireland party. Our increased vote demonstrates that people all over Ireland want strong representation on all the issues that affect their lives, and particularly in any negotiations about the future of this island. The vote for Sinn Féin must be accorded the same status and respect as votes for any other party. Democracy demands nothing less."