The counting of the votes in the Northern Ireland election continues into Saturday. Late on Friday evening, when vote counting was temporarily suspended in Belfast and other regions of Northern Ireland, the Catholic Republican party Sinn Fein was ahead.
According to the BBC, the party received the highest percentage of votes after the first round of counting. With 29 percent of the vote, Sinn Fein is well ahead of the second strongest party, the Protestant Unionist DUP (Democratic Unionist Party), which achieved 21.3 percent. As the Irish broadcaster RTÉ reported on Friday evening, citing Sinn Fein circles, the party is confident that it will also get the most seats in the regional parliament.
That would be a historic result for that part of the UK. Sinn Fein was once considered the political arm of the militant organization IRA, which fought at gunpoint to unite Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. If the expectations are confirmed, the party will be given the right to nominate the head of government in a future unity government. However, the formation of a government could fail due to resistance from the DUP, which would have to appoint an equal representative.
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