Northern Ireland elects its first democratic Assembly in 26 years. Now it's up to the politicians to make it work

By BARRY HILLENBRAND /BELFAST

n Northern Ireland's politics, things are not always quite what they seem. Last week voters went to the polls to elect the 108 members of a new Assembly created by the multi-party peace agreement concluded in Belfast in April. It was a historic election. For the first time since 1972, the people of Ulster were to elect their own government and wrest back from London control of their own affairs. It should have been a fairly straightforward matter.

But as it turned out, the election was more than a battle to select the politicians for a new political arena which--it is ardently hoped--will allow Catholics and Protestants to work out their differences democratically and bring to an end 30 years of violence which has cost more than 3,200 lives. In fact, last week's election was not even fought directly over the deep Catholic and Protestant divide. Rather, the contentious issue in the election was--once again--the agreement itself.

That matter should have been settled conclusively last month when a referendum on the agreement was supported by an overwhelming 71% of the voters. But the hard core of anti-agreement unionists led by Ian Paisley, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, rejoined the battle. Paisley and his cohorts in a number of smaller unionist parties wanted to gain seats in the Assembly as this would give them the ability to paralyze the body's work and ultimately wreck the peace agreement. They believe that the agreement is dangerous because, they say, it grants too many concessions to Catholic nationalists. "The agreement has to be brought to a standstill," says Paisley.

At first it seemed that Paisley might win enough seats to do just that. Exit polls and early returns during the two-day count of the complex proportional representation ballots seemed to indicate that Paisley's party was running ahead of David Trimble's Ulster Unionists, traditionally the largest party in Northern Ireland. Trimble played a key role in negotiating the agreement and led the campaign to get it approved last month. But there were divisive splits within the U.U.P., which weakened the party considerably and gave Paisley an opening. When the votes were seemingly running his way, Paisley glowered into television cameras and predicted that he would "nail the hide of Trimble and [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair--those two liars--to the fence." Paisley himself--as well as his son, Ian Paisley Jr.,--did well at the polls in their home constituency but their party won only 18% of the vote. Since the rules require that important decisions in the Assembly receive some support from both Catholic and Protestant members, Paisley's block of seats will be enough to let him cause considerable trouble, but he does not have enough heft to close the Assembly down.

Trimble was embarrassed by Paisley's jibes and by his success in the polls, but when the final seats were allocated Trimble's U.U.P. ended up as the largest party in the Assembly. "This is not the decisive victory we wanted," said a glum-looking Trimble. "There will be problems ahead, but we always expected that." One of those problems will be the selection of the Assembly's First Minister, the post everyone assumed would go easily to Trimble next week when the body meets for the first time. Trimble will have the support of the Catholic nationalist parties, but Paisley is expect to withhold his blessing, causing delay and disruption as the Assembly attempts to begin its work of self-government.

Even though they are old antagonists, Catholic nationalists are not gloating over Trimble's difficulties. They want the agreement and the Assembly to succeed, and a weakened Trimble will make that task considerably more difficult. Says Seamus Mallon, deputy leader of the predominantly Catholic Social Democratic and Labour Party (S.D.L.P.), "Once the pain of the election is over, all pro-agreement parties will have to work hard to make sure Trimble is not isolated and that the agreement works." The Catholics will come into the Assembly in a new position of strength. Both Sinn Fein, the political wing of the I.R.A., and the S.D.L.P. did well in the election. Sinn Fein increased their vote to 18%, up about 2% from their performance in recent elections.

Several former members of the Irish Republican Army won seats under the Sinn Fein banner. Gerry Kelly, convicted of setting off a bomb which killed one man and damaged London's Old Bailey courthouse, campaigned for and won a seat in North Belfast. He is unrepentant about his violent past. "We did what was necessary in those days," says Kelly. "But times have moved on. Our goals have not changed, but now we hope to use democratic means to achieve them." Many Protestants are deeply suspicious of Kelly's--and Sinn Fein's--conversion to the democratic process, but an I.R.A. cease-fire has been in place for nearly a year and despite occasional violence from fringe terrorist groups, peace seems to be taking hold in the province.

Even more successful than Sinn Fein was John Hume's S.D.L.P., which ended up with a 22% share of the vote, slightly larger than the U.U.P.'s total. The S.D.L.P.. will have enough seats in the new Assembly for Hume, if he agrees to stand, to be chosen as Deputy First Minister. Hume, along with Trimble, was one of the key architects of the agreement and a strong supporter of the Assembly. Says he: "We have to create institutions that allow us to break down the barriers between our two deeply divided communities and begin the healing process."

That healing process will unquestionably be harmed by Paisley, who is a master of disruption and who will continue to attract attention disproportionate to the support he actually has in Ulster. Most people in Northern Ireland approve of the agreement, as the results of both the referendum and last week's election show. And the substantial majority of the politicians who will take seats in the Assembly are eager to make it work. Says David Ervine, leader of the Progressive Unionist Party, "Paisley represents old politics. The agreement is a reality, despite its faults. There is a new age of politics in Northern Ireland."

Ervine is right. The new age of politics in Northern Ireland will begin this week when the Assembly takes its first tentative steps. To succeed, it will require more goodwill and cooperation than is usually encountered in Northern Ireland's political scene. But both Trimble and Hume say they are eager to get Catholic nationalists and Protestant unionists to work together. Trimble's job will be complicated by divisions within his own party and the split within unionism. Yet now that the elections and referendums are out of the way and issues such as housing, the environment and health are waiting to be dealt with by the new Assembly, perhaps new reservoirs of goodwill and cooperation can be found.