Elections to seal the peace process in Northern Ireland

Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), has good chances of becoming Northern Ireland's next head of government. Wolfgang Koydl portrays the 80-year-old preacher as an obsolete politician. "Admittedly, not only the IRA but Northern Ireland as a whole has changed. Prosperity has returned to what was once the Kingdom's poorhouse and the majority of voters yearn for political normality, which naturally includes self-government. Paisley knows this, and he is very much aware that time will pass him by if he doesn't grab the opportunity now... But even if he does become Prime Minister, according to [rival] Robert McCartney he won't be in office for longer than six months 'before his own people stage a coup against him and shove him off to the House of Lords'... However, even a new unionist leadership won't be able to counter demographic and economic facts: the future of Northern Ireland belongs to the Catholics."

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