20.11.03
The Guardian | New Sinn Féin: from Armalite to Armani
New Sinn Féin: from Armalite to Armani
Republicans are trying to cast a broad net to catch voters from all sides who want peace and progress beyond the traditional loyalties
Rosie Cowan, Ireland correspondent
Thursday November 20, 2003
The Guardian
They are calling it the tiochfaidh ar la-de-da vote, a play on the IRA's infamous slogan "our day will come". Tramping the leafy avenues in some of Northern Ireland's most prosperous suburbs might seem a long way from Sinn Féin's 80s battle cry of the Armalite and the ballot box. It still wants a united Ireland. But many policies in its glossy 90-page manifesto - encouraging small business culture, developing the economic infrastructure - would not look out of place on the New Labour agenda.
Detractors dismiss it as spin, swapping AK-47s for Armani suits to give a veneer of political respectability. But republicans recognise the importance of appealing to the widest possible audience in the November 26 poll.
Voting in previous elections has always been along sectarian and class lines, with Sinn Féin attracting the majority of its support from staunch working-class Catholic areas. But this time there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that hardline unionist voters are more entrenched than ever, because of their opposition to the Good Friday agreement.
However, for Gerry Adams, the party president, the buzz phrase is the "new majority" - those who support the 1998 peace accord, regardless of their background. He hopes some of them will shake off their inhibitions to give republicans, if not their first-preference votes, then perhaps second or third.
Sinn Féin got 18 seats in the last Stormont assembly, making it the fourth largest party after the Ulster Unionists with 28, the Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP), with 24, and Democratic Unionists with 20 seats. Republicans overtook the moderate SDLP at the June 2001 Westminster election, trumping its three MPs with four.
Sinn Féin may wish to establish its lead as the province's largest nationalist party but at least one republican denies the party has reinvented itself as a more cuddly outfit so as to lure middle-class liberals. "We haven't shed our republican history," he said. "Even if we were stupid enough to think we could, our opponents would never let us get away with it."
Sinn Féin candidates, he added, were not running away from their IRA connections. At the Bloody Sunday tribunal, Martin McGuinness, the senior negotiator and Mid-Ulster Westminster MP, discussed his former status as a paramilitary leader. Gerry Kelly, erstwhile IRA bomber and Maze jail escaper, who is canvassing affluent homes in north Belfast, has never made a secret of his past.
But republicans are claiming that many other Sinn Féin candidates have never had any links with the IRA. The party is drawing in a new breed of young radicals, dedicated to creating a more equal society and making the peace process work through republican politics.
"We are attracting young voters, but it's not about the glamour of violence," said a republican analyst. "The first IRA ceasefire was nine years, ago when first-time voters were nine years old. The whiff of cordite blew away a long time ago."
There is also now the influence of "new Catholic money", the middle-class professionals who moved from west Belfast to more well-heeled areas but never forsook their republican roots. Sinn Féin draws a comparison with South Africa, where business people forged links with the ANC liberation movement since it made economic sense.
"Whatever people think of Sinn Féin and the IRA, we've come a long way from the black hole of 10 years ago, when we had the Shankill bomb [IRA] and Greysteel shootings [loyalist UDA]," said one republican.
Alex Maskey, a former boxer - the stereotypical working-class republican hard man - is one who has stepped well outside his own political arena to try to broaden the vote. He made history when he served as Belfast's first Sinn Féin lord mayor this past year. The theme of his mayorship was crossing the sectarian divide and he engaged in all sorts of actions, from meeting loyalists and Protestant clergy to laying a Remembrance Day wreath at the cenotaph.
Now he has made another leap, from west to south Belfast to stand in a constituency of both rich and deprived areas. One pundit compared his move to an English Tory throwing away a safe home counties seat for an inner-city gamble. But Mr Maskey insists he is getting a positive response.
"I know I had a certain persona and some people were very wary of me when I ran for the Laganbank council seat in south Belfast two years ago," he said. "But this time the hostility is completely gone. My canvassers are hearing lots of favourable stories about my time as mayor and there's goodwill from all sides of the community."
Mr Maskey says Sinn Féin, by taking on two of the most challenging Stormont portfolios, with Mr McGuinness in charge of education and Bairbre de Brun as health minister, showed voters how well republicans could work in government. "The issue most people raise is how soon can we get Stormont re-established. But then they are keen to talk about local problems like traffic, housing and licensing laws. I know it's difficult to vote beyond your own tradition. But people have told me they are definitely considering it. Crossing those lines is what the Good Friday agreement is all about."
New Sinn Féin: from Armalite to Armani
Republicans are trying to cast a broad net to catch voters from all sides who want peace and progress beyond the traditional loyalties
Rosie Cowan, Ireland correspondent
Thursday November 20, 2003
The Guardian
They are calling it the tiochfaidh ar la-de-da vote, a play on the IRA's infamous slogan "our day will come". Tramping the leafy avenues in some of Northern Ireland's most prosperous suburbs might seem a long way from Sinn Féin's 80s battle cry of the Armalite and the ballot box. It still wants a united Ireland. But many policies in its glossy 90-page manifesto - encouraging small business culture, developing the economic infrastructure - would not look out of place on the New Labour agenda.
Detractors dismiss it as spin, swapping AK-47s for Armani suits to give a veneer of political respectability. But republicans recognise the importance of appealing to the widest possible audience in the November 26 poll.
Voting in previous elections has always been along sectarian and class lines, with Sinn Féin attracting the majority of its support from staunch working-class Catholic areas. But this time there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that hardline unionist voters are more entrenched than ever, because of their opposition to the Good Friday agreement.
However, for Gerry Adams, the party president, the buzz phrase is the "new majority" - those who support the 1998 peace accord, regardless of their background. He hopes some of them will shake off their inhibitions to give republicans, if not their first-preference votes, then perhaps second or third.
Sinn Féin got 18 seats in the last Stormont assembly, making it the fourth largest party after the Ulster Unionists with 28, the Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP), with 24, and Democratic Unionists with 20 seats. Republicans overtook the moderate SDLP at the June 2001 Westminster election, trumping its three MPs with four.
Sinn Féin may wish to establish its lead as the province's largest nationalist party but at least one republican denies the party has reinvented itself as a more cuddly outfit so as to lure middle-class liberals. "We haven't shed our republican history," he said. "Even if we were stupid enough to think we could, our opponents would never let us get away with it."
Sinn Féin candidates, he added, were not running away from their IRA connections. At the Bloody Sunday tribunal, Martin McGuinness, the senior negotiator and Mid-Ulster Westminster MP, discussed his former status as a paramilitary leader. Gerry Kelly, erstwhile IRA bomber and Maze jail escaper, who is canvassing affluent homes in north Belfast, has never made a secret of his past.
But republicans are claiming that many other Sinn Féin candidates have never had any links with the IRA. The party is drawing in a new breed of young radicals, dedicated to creating a more equal society and making the peace process work through republican politics.
"We are attracting young voters, but it's not about the glamour of violence," said a republican analyst. "The first IRA ceasefire was nine years, ago when first-time voters were nine years old. The whiff of cordite blew away a long time ago."
There is also now the influence of "new Catholic money", the middle-class professionals who moved from west Belfast to more well-heeled areas but never forsook their republican roots. Sinn Féin draws a comparison with South Africa, where business people forged links with the ANC liberation movement since it made economic sense.
"Whatever people think of Sinn Féin and the IRA, we've come a long way from the black hole of 10 years ago, when we had the Shankill bomb [IRA] and Greysteel shootings [loyalist UDA]," said one republican.
Alex Maskey, a former boxer - the stereotypical working-class republican hard man - is one who has stepped well outside his own political arena to try to broaden the vote. He made history when he served as Belfast's first Sinn Féin lord mayor this past year. The theme of his mayorship was crossing the sectarian divide and he engaged in all sorts of actions, from meeting loyalists and Protestant clergy to laying a Remembrance Day wreath at the cenotaph.
Now he has made another leap, from west to south Belfast to stand in a constituency of both rich and deprived areas. One pundit compared his move to an English Tory throwing away a safe home counties seat for an inner-city gamble. But Mr Maskey insists he is getting a positive response.
"I know I had a certain persona and some people were very wary of me when I ran for the Laganbank council seat in south Belfast two years ago," he said. "But this time the hostility is completely gone. My canvassers are hearing lots of favourable stories about my time as mayor and there's goodwill from all sides of the community."
Mr Maskey says Sinn Féin, by taking on two of the most challenging Stormont portfolios, with Mr McGuinness in charge of education and Bairbre de Brun as health minister, showed voters how well republicans could work in government. "The issue most people raise is how soon can we get Stormont re-established. But then they are keen to talk about local problems like traffic, housing and licensing laws. I know it's difficult to vote beyond your own tradition. But people have told me they are definitely considering it. Crossing those lines is what the Good Friday agreement is all about."
