Word: dup
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...Northern Ireland; party members now occupy seats on the watchdog body that oversees the force. In return for this support, republicans felt, there was an implied agreement that Northern Ireland's government would take control of policing and justice matters. After years of Protestant outcry, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) recently backed the move. Sinn Fein has agreed to support a new group overseeing contentious parades by the Protestant Orange Order. The accord has steadied the ship at Stormont, but the power-sharing government, particularly the beleaguered First Minister and DUP leader Peter Robinson, still faces serious challenges...
...most troublesome opposition for the DUP comes in the form of the anti-power-sharing Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV). The party has no seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly but has growing support among conservative, Evangelical Protestants, in part because a scandal involving Robinson's wife Iris (who obtained $80,000 from property developers to help her 19-year-old lover establish a café business) has rocked the bigger party's Evangelical base. Many expect the TUV to do well in the upcoming British general election. "The DUP is very worried," says Rick Wilford, a professor of politics...
...three-way split of the Protestant vote among the DUP, the TUV and the moderate Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) could throw power sharing into complete disarray and allow Sinn Fein to emerge as Northern Ireland's largest party. That would mean a Sinn Fein politician, most likely Martin McGuinness, would assume the role of First Minister. The prospect of serving as McGuinness's deputy would be anathema to most Protestant politicians, and the government could well fall apart. (See pictures of the British army leaving Northern Ireland...
...into a psychiatric hospital. But much more is at stake over the next six weeks than the couple's political careers: the scandal comes at a critical time for the province's shaky power-sharing agreement. For months, the two biggest parties in government, Robinson's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which is mostly supported by Protestants, and the Catholic Sinn Fein, have been at loggerheads over the devolution of policing and justice powers from London. Sinn Fein wants control over the police to be transferred to Belfast to end what it perceives as a pro-Protestant bias. But many Protestants...
...coalition falls apart, that would also trigger new elections to the Assembly. And this may not be good for the DUP. Iris Robinson's affair has rocked the rural evangelicals who comprise the party's base, and may lead some to drift toward two smaller Protestant parties. A three-way split of the Protestant vote could give Sinn Fein the largest number of seats in the Assembly, causing the political process to grind to a halt. Such an outcome would also be a disaster for Robinson, who has steered the DUP away from its original firebrand populism to its current...