Now, not 2015, is the time to change Stormont
16 February 2011
Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister:-
“If mandatory coalition isn’t working – and it patently is not – then, why does Tom Elliott want to inflict a further 4 years of such failure on Northern Ireland? The time for an Opposition, the time to enable the people to change their government, the time to have voluntary, not mandatory, coalition is now, 2011, not 2015! So, why does the UUP – and indeed the DUP – want to c ling to and sustain a system they know is not working, and can never work?
“If there was the necessary resolve by unionists – indeed all – who acknowledge mandatory coalition has failed, it could be ditched and replaced by voluntary coalition in 2011, not 2015. How? Simply, by all parties who recognise its failure refusing to enter another mandatory coalition after this May’s election and thereby forcing the change necessary by offering voluntary coalition as the durable and democratic means by which Stormont remains. That is not a rejection of cross-community government, but rather a route to workable shared government.
“After the election those who can agree what to do about the economy, health, education etc, and command the necessary Assembly majority, get to govern and those who can’t – whoever they might be – perform the vital function of opposition. It’s not that there isn’t a way to voluntary coalition, it’s that there isn’t the will. The lure and guarantee of as of right places in government overcomes the principle and conviction of those who claim to be opposed to the system which they keep alive by their presence.
“So, my challenge to both the UUP and DUP is to stop merely talking aspirationally about voluntary coalition and find the resolve to compel its delivery. It can be done, all they have to do is cut the chains that bind them to the misery and failure of undemocratic mandatory coalition.
“Certainly, TUV’s message in the upcoming election will be for such positive and workable change – which no democrat need fear – drawing the sharp contrast with those who want to give us more of the same deadlock, failure and gridlocking vetoes that have inflicted the dysfunctional performance and system of the last four years. We’ll be advocating change now, not diluting that message by pushing it into never never land.
“Now is the time for all unionists, unitedly, to force change, rather than to indulge in mere words, while all the time buttressing the failed system that everyone knows will never work.”
