Assembly elections 'to be held in October'
Elections to Northern Ireland’s collapsed power-sharing government will be held in October, it was predicted today.
Even though attempts to drag the peace process out of crisis have been deadlocked for months, members of the loyalist Ulster Political Research Group insisted fresh polls to the Stormont Assembly are due within months.
UPRG representative Frankie Gallagher said senior members of the organisation were briefed by “very reliable sources within political circles”.
He said: “We have been told elections are going to be called in October.”
Elections to the devolved institutions in Belfast were twice called off earlier this year as London and Dublin failed to break the deadlock.
Despite demands from Sinn Féin for a ballot box battle, David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists refuse to share power with republicans until the IRA declares its war is over.
Unionist confidence has been shattered ever since an alleged Provo spy ring uncovered at Stormont last October forced the British government to suspend the fledgling administration.
Since then the UUP has been gripped by civil war as hardliners fight to seize control from Mr Trimble.
Party officers were gathering tonight to set a date for yet another showdown meeting of the ruling Ulster Unionist Council in a bid to end the bitter dispute.
As the UUP focused to end the in-fighting, both Ian Paisley’s anti-Good Friday Agreement Democratic Unionists and the moderate nationalist SDLP have pressed for new polls.
But the UPRG, which is linked to the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association, claimed the British government was prepared to give in to the demands for the wrong reasons.
Mr Gallagher refused to confirm if he or other senior representatives Tommy Kirkham and Frank McCoubrey would run for the Assembly.
But he insisted: “This is a sop to republicans and pro-Agreement unionists.
“There needs to be round table talks involving all sides first, to create political stability and lasting peace.
“Elections were cancelled for the wrong reasons and now they are going to restore them for the wrong reasons. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
