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Assembly selects Trimble, Mallon

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Anne Cadwallader

BELFAST – It seemed as though a new era of peace and democracy had finally arrived when members of the newly elected Assembly of Northern Ireland arrived for their first meeting last week.

History was in the air last Wednesday at Stormont as the 108 politicians entered for the first time the brick building where the Belfast Agreement was struck on April 10.

The Rev. Ian Paisley of the DUP was in the same room as Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams for the first time. Indeed, old – and sometimes mortal – enemies faced each other across the same room, breathing the same air, poised to vote on the same issues.

In the Assembly’s first order of business, it elected David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist Party leader, to serve as first minister, and the SDLP deputy leader, Seamus Mallon, to be deputy first minister. The SDLP’s leader, John Hume, who already serves in Westminster and the European Parliament, bowed out due to pressure of work.

Both Trimble and Mallon made dignified, statesmanlike speeches, with Trimble, whose party controls 28 seats, coining the phrase of the day: “We have never said that because somebody has a past they cannot have a future.” Could this be a new Trimble?

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There were tensions, of course. Unionists muttered and coughed whenever a few words were spoken in Irish, and there was occasional barracking, with shouts of “gunman” and “killers” echoing around the chamber.

Peter Robinson, the deputy DUP leader, called the Sinn Fein members opposite him “unreconstructed terrorists.” Cedric Wilson of the UK Unionist Party spoke about “unrepentant and fully armed apologists for violence.”

Sinn Fein’s leader, Gerry Adams, gave a speech which seemed conciliatory beside that of Martin McGuinness, who bluntly said that nothing the people across the chamber from him did could prevent fundamental change.

Mallon’s acceptance speech referred to Trimble’s integrity and courage. The UUP leader said success couldn’t be guaranteed, but he and Mallon were committed to talking through their differences.

Paisley, as might be expected, had harsh words for Sinn Fein. In a reference to Adams, he said: “I am thinking today of the people who were murdered by his cohorts. The families smashed, people turned into vegetables. We deserve an answer from him.”

Then it was the turn of the DUP’s Sammy Wilson. He harangued the republicans opposite, accusing them of “killing, bombing and maiming their way into this room.”

McGuinness then went for Wilson’s throat, saying how great it was to see him “with his clothes on” (referring to a Sunday newspaper’s publication, two years ago, of private photos of Wilson and a woman frolicking nude outdoors).

At an impromptu press conference outside the building in the bright sunlight of a July evening, Trimble was asked how it felt to be in verbal embrace of a conciliatory Gerry Adams. He feigned a shocked expression.

Then the photographers pleaded with Mallon and Trimble to hold hands high enough over the microphones to be snapped. “We’d better be careful how we do this, especially if I’m being embraced,” Trimble said.

Meanwhile, the Alliance Party has been riven by the uncharacteristic and ugly feud. Seamus Close, its deputy leader, has accused his former leader, Lord John Alderdice, who has resigned, of doing so for selfish motives.

Close had been in the running for the job of chairing the Northern Assembly until Lord Alderdice resigned and was given the job himself by the Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam.

Close said he was disappointed by Lord Alderdice’s resignation and that he regretted to say it was motivated by self-interest rather than the stated reason of the party’s poor showing in the elections the previous week, when it picked up just 6 seats.

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