Ahead of N. Ireland vote, a sense of quiet takes hold

NEWRY, Northern Ireland -- William Bennett, a 20-something engineering student, was rushing to get home after an afternoon of shopping when he was asked who he thought would win.

"Arsenal," he said, unequivocally.

Bennett could be forgiven for confusing a visitor's question about the looming elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly with a prognostication about the Carling Cup soccer final that he and his friends had arranged to watch in a local pub later.

Because, whether in this border market town or up in Belfast, or even the normally politics-mad northwest corner of Derry, no one can remember an election in Northern Ireland in their lifetime that was so quiet.

While much of the outside world views Wednesday's election for the 108-seat assembly that has been suspended for four years as a make-or-break moment in the peace process, many of those who will cast ballots seem to be approaching it with a matter-of-fact attitude, like keeping a dentist's appointment.

There is a sense that the hard work was done in January, when Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, voted to endorse a police force that is reformed but still hated by many Irish republicans. Still, the balloting is essential in persuading the Rev. Ian Paisley and his Democratic Unionist Party that they have the backing of most Protestants to form a power-sharing government.

Paisley, the 80-year-old fundamentalist preacher, has made clear his distaste for serving as a first minister in the assembly's executive in which his second-in-command would be Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein, the IRA's former chief of staff. But it is the consensus of the governments in Dublin and London -- not to mention ordinary people the length and breadth of Northern Ireland -- that this will happen.

The governments have set a March 26 deadline for the parties to form a power-sharing executive. As Peter Hain, Britain's secretary of state, put it, it s devolution or dissolution. The prospect of something that sounds like, but is not quite really, joint sovereignty between Dublin and London is meant to pressure Paisley to do a deal. But, while elections take place on appointed dates in Northern Ireland, such deadlines have a history of being ignored.

Sinn Fein's shedding of perhaps its last shibboleth -- endorsing the police -- has brought the biggest split in the republican movement since 1998, when the willingness to accept the principle that Northern Ireland would remain part of the United Kingdom until a majority in the country vote otherwise sent many hard-liners packing.

Dozens of former IRA prisoners have helped organize independent republican candidates to oppose Sinn Fein, including Peggy O'Hara, whose son Patsy was one of the 10 republican prisoners who starved themselves to death in 1981. Gerry McGeough, a legendary IRA gunrunner who was imprisoned in the United States, has challenged Michelle Gildernew, one of Sinn Fein's rising stars.

But most political observers believe that McGuinness and the Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, have done their arithmetic studiously and have navigated through the latest straits with their political base intact.

Paisley's apparent willingness to share power, meanwhile, has spurred defections but also rejuvenated the hard-line unionist base, which sees anything that legitimizes Sinn Fein as a Faustian deal that will eventually see Northern Ireland subsumed by the Irish Republic. Unionists, who are predominately Protestant, want Northern Ireland to remain part of Britain.

Still, the parties have found some common ground, opposing water rates and uniting in a desire to lower corporate taxes that would make Northern Ireland more competitive with the Irish Republic's economy, Europe's most vibrant. Some wags have noted that after spending a lifetime denouncing interfering southerners, Paisley wants to be taxed like one.

On Thursday, Paisley gave his strongest indication yet that he was prepared to share power, saying his party will seek the finance minister's portfolio if, as expected, the Democratic Unionist Party tops the ticket.

For the once-dominant parties that have fallen behind Sinn Fein and the DUP -- the Social Democratic and Labor Party on the Catholic nationalist side, and the Ulster Unionists on the Protestant unionist side -- trying to position themselves as more reasonable alternatives is a challenge when so many people seem to feel this election will cement a power-sharing deal struck at St. Andrews in November.

Mark Durkan, the SDLP leader, said only his party can end the "stop and go" politics he accused the bigger parties of engaging in for self-interest. Durkan sought to burnish his party's nationalist credentials, saying the SDLP would seek a referendum on a united Ireland as soon as the power-sharing government was seen to be "operating stably."

The Irish government and southern opposition parties are openly supporting the SDLP, seeing the traditionally moderate party as a counterbalance to Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein, meanwhile, is poised to become a power broker in the Irish Republic's general election, expected in May.

There was something of a titter last week when a Belfast Telegraph poll found that almost two-thirds of those surveyed said they did not expect Paisley and McGuinness to work well together.

But the real news, buried in the number crunching, is that a majority expect them to work together at all. After a subdued campaign, the real drama may lay ahead in the next few weeks.