SINN FÉIN:SINN FÉIN leader Gerry Adams strongly rejected suggestions that his party might consider abandoning abstentionism to play a role in the election of a new government at Westminster.
Speaking shortly after he retained his Westminster seat in West Belfast, Mr Adams said he had no choice in the matter anyway, as he had been elected on an abstentionist mandate.
“I don’t have a choice, because I’ve just been mandated not to go, that’s what I was mandated. People had a choice, they could have voted for a number of unionists,” he told reporters.
Asked whether abstentionism could be “got around” in some way, he replied: “Well I don’t want to get around it. Ask President Mary McAleese, ask the Taoiseach, ask the leader of the [Irish] Labour Party, would they go to the British parliament?”
Mr Adams welcomed a small percentage of votes he had received from “heartland loyalist or unionist areas” of the constituency. “I want to thank those people who see that their class interest rests with Sinn Féin and not with the conservative parties of unionism,” he said.
Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said he would continue to work with Peter Robinson following his loss in the election.
Mr McGuinness was speaking in Ballymena after his expected landslide victory for Sinn Féin in Mid-Ulster was announced at 3am. Mr Robinson’s loss was a “shock to us all”, but the people had spoken, he said. The people had also charged Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness to continue in the Executive, he added.
Despite last-minute rumours that Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly was within a whisker of unseating the DUP’s Nigel Dodds in North Belfast, a relieved-looking Mr Dodds retained the seat fairly comfortably, with 14,812 votes.
Mr Kelly polled 12,588 and Alban Maginness of the SDLP came third with 4,544. Ulster Conservatives and Unionists – New Force’s (UCUNF’s) Fred Cobain was not expected to make much impact on the DUP vote, and so it turned out – he polled 2,837 – but William Webb of the Alliance party was happy with his result of 1,809, up from 438 in 2005.
After Alex Maskey’s withdrawal from the race in South Belfast, Sinn Féin activists had been devoting all their energies to boosting Mr Kelly’s chances of bumping Mr Dodds.
