Stormont Election 2022

BonnieSituation

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119120978#Comment_119120978

You are going to absolutely hate the next GE I would wager.

retalivity

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119120978#Comment_119120978

PR-STV? I mean im sure you're aware that's what is in place and how it works...

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119121878#Comment_119121878

Yeah, and with PR-STV, you need about 46-47% to win an overall majority and win the election, so again I ask how did they nearly win an election with only 24.5% of the vote?

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119122383#Comment_119122383

I think this is a bit of intentional misreading of a bit of glib, but historic, reduction. SF got most 1st preference votes, and "won" the Most Popular vote. Obviously, PR meant it didn't translate into seats, but when the results came in the headlines that made international news was "Sinn Fein tops polls".

The wind is in their sales and whether than means we're heading towards a SF Dublin government, who knows. By all accounts they're top party in the North - thus, winners. It won't be the apocalypse many predict if and when they form a Dublin Cabinet (I daresay they'll find the top seat much harder than decades of hurling from the ditch), but of all the parties on the island, they are in the ascendancy. It's denial to say otherwise. And that's speaking as someone who has never given them a 1st pref vote (god I'll be glad when that caveat will never be needed again).

pixelburp

SF, SDLP and Alliance recalled the Executive to hold another vote for a speaker. It failed, cos of course the DUP blocked it but soemthing about Paul Givan's comments struck a nerve. I do understand the context in which he spoke but complaining about "majority supremacy" as a negative does somewhat drop the veil about his party's bonafides as a democratic entity. Complaining about "entitlement" also feels a degree of the pot calling the kettle black...

What we’ve had over the past three weeks from when we last met to elect a speaker has been republican entitlement, has been majority supremacy from the Alliance Party no less, the party of the cross-community party that have abandoned that territory and now unashamedly joined with the SDLP and Sinn Féin, joining for majority rule, calling for the Belfast Agreement to be changed so that these proceedings can proceed without Unionists having their say.

BonnieSituation

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119135554#Comment_119135554

The cheek.

54and56

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119135554#Comment_119135554

The unionist veto is the DUP last stand against democracy, interestingly the TUV are stuck between a rock and a hard place on this as they oppose the mandatory coalition built into the GFA. This is from their 2022 manifesto:

"TUV has a clear vision of what will work and provide good and durable government. It is voluntary coalition with a meaningful and resourced Opposition. This does not deny cross-community government. Indeed, the strategic use of weighted majority voting would guarantee this.

With no party big enough to govern on its own, coalition is inevitable. As elsewhere, for it to work, it must be a coalition of the willing. Those, after an election, who can agree a programme for government on the key economic and social issues and who together can command the requisite majority in the Assembly, form the government - whoever they are. Those who cannot agree form the Opposition, challenging and presenting an alternative at the next election.

To ensure cross-community involvement, TUV would accept a weighted majority vote in an Assembly to approve the new government and its programme and budget. As politics further normalise, it should be possible to reduce the threshold to 50% over successive elections.

Until enough MLAs are ready to embrace essential change and permit government which can work, then, an approach which concentrates their thinking and maximises local control within Northern Ireland could be beneficial. The collapse of mandatory coalition need not mean the end of devolution. Far from it. Indeed, it can be the catalyst to project Northern Ireland forward into governmental arrangements that work and end the cycle of failure."

Of course they then hedge their bets by saying they'd "accept" a weighted majority but do so without stating what that should be. I don't know why but I'm guessing it'll be north of 75%!!

DUP / TUV are desperate for the UK Govt to ride to the rescue and turn the clock back to the 1950's but that ship has well and truly sailed and the rump of hard line Unionism is now more akin to Terreblanche and his Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging nut jobs at the time Apartheid ended in South Africa, retreating into an ever declining hard core of reality deniers crying out for their definition of the natural order of things to be restored but ultimately over the long term consigning themselves to the footnotes of history as society normalises and moves forward in a far more inclusive and mutually respectful manner through dialogue and compromise etc.

Sam Russell

That also means Johnson and motley crew are also in a bind. They cannot continue to allow the DUPes to block an executive to form by blocking the election of a speaker, and so prevent even the rump ministers to hand out Westminster largesse.

So, can Westminster impose a solution without abandoning the DUPes?