Paisley to drop leadership role in Northern Ireland government
DUBLIN: Ian Paisley, the Protestant evangelist who dominated Northern Ireland political life for four turbulent decades, said he would step down in May as leader of the government and as head of his Democratic Unionist Party.
An era in Northern Ireland politics ended Tuesday as Ian Paisley, the head of Northern Ireland's power-sharing government, announced that he would step down.
After decades of stirring the cauldron of conflict, Paisley finally turned his people toward peace by leading a power-sharing government of Catholics and Protestants.
The Protestant evangelist, 81, who dominated Northern Ireland political life for four turbulent decades, said he would step down in May as leader of the government and as head of his Democratic Unionist Party.
Martin McGuinness, the former Irish Republican Army chieftain who became Paisley's close colleague, praised his former enemy for providing "decisive leadership that was instrumental in achieving the peace that we now enjoy."
Paisley said he had decided to leave in May after mounting pressure from within his party in recent weeks to stand aside. Paisley faced growing dissent from hard-liners within his party over his dramatic U-turn last year to share power with Catholics. Meanwhile his son was forced to resign last month over ethics failures.
He said he would step down after an investment conference in Belfast organized by the power-sharing executive.
"I came to this decision a few weeks ago when I was thinking very much about the conference and what was going to come after the conference," Paisley said. "I thought that it is a marker, a very big marker and it would be a very appropriate time for me to bow out."
Although he will resign as Northern Ireland's first minister, he said he planned to remain a member of British Parliament and a Northern Ireland Assembly member.
Paisley ended three and a half years of political deadlock in March 2007 by abandoning his decades-old refusal to work with the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party after that party's landmark decision to begin working with the Northern Ireland police force.
"He played an absolutely historic role in ending the deadlock and establishing permanent devolved government and deserves enormous credit for the courage and vision he showed," a former British secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Peter Hain, said.
Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/04/europe/ulster.php
No comments:
Post a Comment