'Elections would help peace process'
The setting of an election date for the Assembly in Northern Ireland would create an incentive for political progress, the British government was told today.
After hour-long talks at Stormont, nationalist SDLP leader Mark Durkan and Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams both claimed an election date must be set to help efforts to restore devolution in Northern Ireland.
Mr Durkan said: “I think particularly if people knew that they have got an absolutely reliable election date – firm, fixed and actually holding – I believe that fact would create incentives and imperatives on its own.
“It also creates incentives and imperatives for the electorate as well and I think it is time that we all faced up to that.
“I am one of those people who actually has more confidence and more faith in the public at this stage than I do in the way that this process has staggered about the place.”
Assembly elections scheduled for May were cancelled by British Prime Minister Tony Blair four days into the campaign, because he feared they would not produce a stable government.
The Irish and British Governments were unhappy with public assurances from Sinn Féin and the IRA that republicans would do nothing to undermine the Good Friday Agreement.
They wanted a declaration from the IRA that it was ending all paramilitary activity for good, including intelligence-gathering, recruiting, training, targeting, weapons procurement and involvement in all violence.
The decision to cancel the elections was strongly criticised by nationalists and in the United States.
However, with Dublin and London focusing on three weeks of intense negotiations, parties believe there is a possibility that a Stormont poll could be held in November.
Mr Durkan’s call today for an election date to be set follows comments at the weekend from Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, that elections could only be held if there was a credible chance of an executive being formed afterwards.
Mr Ahern claimed on Sunday: “We want to have an election this side of Christmas.
“We want to have the prospect that the election would give us a power-sharing executive and we want to see that they will implement a programme for government that will give stability in Northern Ireland.”
