Voting for those who put Sinn Fein in government will keep them there
01 March 2011
Speaking (Monday night, 28 Feb) at the launch of a new branch of TUV in Markethill, the Party Leader, Jim Allister, said the Republic’s election underscored the huge democratic deficit in Northern Ireland, arising from the prohibition here on the voters changing their government.
“As we’ve seen over the weekend, voters in the Republic exercised the right, taken for granted across the democratic world, to change their government by voting out a failed regime. The only place, outside of despotic dictatorships, where such is forbidden is here in Northern Ireland. One of the shameful and undemocratic consequences of mandatory coalition is this prohibition on voting parties out of government.
“Mandatory coalition delivers the insult and absurdity of guaranteeing bad government, because there is no necessity to agree a common platform for government, and then compounds that insult by denying voters the right to change their government, or even have an Opposition.
“We will see this inequity in play again on 5th May when voters in Scotland and Wales will be allowed to change their regional government, but voters here will not. Until this monstrous denial of democracy is removed we will never have workable devolution. In demanding its removal, not in 2015, but now, we make the most basic and rational demand imaginable. It is a gross indictment of the parties in government that they are in cahoots to deny voters this basic right.”
Turning to the relative success of IRA/Sinn Fein in the Republic’s election, Jim Allister said, “I wonder does Peter Robinson ever listen to the absurdity of some of the things he says. Today, he talked about thwarting Sinn Fein, but he is the very man that has given us Sinn Fein to rule over us in Northern Ireland. It was the DUP that empowered Sinn Fein at Stormont. Sinn Fein could never have been in government without the DUP’s acceptance of them. Martin McGuinness is Peter’s buddy in government by choice, not coercion.
“So for the DUP to beat their chests as the bulwark against Sinn Fein advance is laughable. They have been their facilitators, their partners in government. Voting for those who gave us Sinn Fein to rule over us will keep them there. Only a vote for TUV shows real resolve and steel against IRA/Sinn Fein.”
