Change beckons as Ian Paisley bows out of Irish politics

Jun 5, 2008, 16:10 GMT

Northern Ireland\'s First Minister Ian Paisley speaks to the media inside his office at Stormont Castle for the last time, 05 June, 2008. The new Democratic Unionist Party leader Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness are to be nominated as first and deputy first minister at Stormont later this afternoon. EPA/STR

Belfast - The era of Ian Paisley, the firebrand Presbyterian preacher turned peacemaker, came to an end in Northern Ireland Thursday, opening up the prospect of a more pragmatic, and perhaps cooler, period of power-sharing between Protestants and Catholics in the province.

Paisley, who has been a towering figure in Protestant politics in Northern Ireland for the last four decades, handed over the reins of power to Peter Robinson, his long-term protégé and deputy in the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

The change from Paisley, 82, to Robinson, 59, is, first of all, and most obviously, a generational one.

Whereas Paisley made his mark as a fiery speaker whose one-time all-consuming hatred of Catholics mellowed with age to make him an advocate of peace and reconciliation, Robinson is a soft-spoken pragmatist who has served the Northern Ireland government as a quietly efficient finance minister.    

The difference in the two men's stature and temperament, analysts predict, is bound to lead to a change of tone, if not a cooling, in relations between the DUP and Sinn Fein, the nationalist pro- Republican party, in the power-sharing government.

Unlike Paisley, whose seemingly easy-going relations with Martin McGuinness, his Sinn Fein deputy, earned the duo the nickname the 'Chuckle brothers,' Robinson is expected to adopt a more aloof, managerial style in his dealings with Sinn Fein.

More than Paisley, whose dominating figure and historic role in the peace process helped stifle internal DUP criticism of power- sharing, Robinson would have to prove that he could hold the disparate church and secular wings of the party together.

However, those who might have hoped that the new first minister would show less enthusiasm for the principle of power-sharing as a solution to the province's history of conflict would be disappointed, analysts said.

The core foundations for a new phase of joint Protestant-Catholic government in Northern Ireland could not be better, analysts believe.

Overall, the principle of power-sharing is accepted by Northern Ireland's voters as a premise for their enjoyment of the political and economic dividends of the peace process, and, perhaps, the foundation for real and lasting change.

'Northern Ireland has grown in confidence and turned away from its past,' Paisley said in his farewell speech to the party.    His assessment, reflected in a general air of optimism in the province, is backed up by the hard  economic facts of massive foreign investment in the province and increased cross-border cooperation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.  

The changes in Northern Ireland this week have coincided with a change of government in the Republic, where Brian Cowen took over as prime minister from Bertie Ahern in May.

Ahern headed the Irish government for 11 years from 1997, and achieving a peace settlement in Northern Ireland was always one of his top priorities.

He was heavily involved in negotiating the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and in steering unionists and nationalists to the eventual restoration of a power-sharing executive in May, 2007.

Cowen, meanwhile, is likely to have more pressing concerns than Northern Ireland, in particular steering Ireland through rougher economic waters.

But, he too, paid tribute to Paisley's 'immense vision in building a new relationship between unionists and nationalists on this island.'