Ministers' mandate
SF voters gave the go-ahead for two ministers
On Tuesday the Assembly, sitting in Stormont voted in favour of the
report tabled by David Trimble and Seamus Mallon and agreed the
future political structures for the Six Counties.
The vote, 77 for and 29 against, marked another significant step on
the road to peace, justice and freedom.
The vote opens the door to the establishment of the Executive in
Belfast, cross border bodies and triggers the process that will put
two Sinn Fein ministers into that Executive.
That the No men of unionism were routed puts David Trimble in the
driving seat of unionist politics.
He has the support of the majority in the Assembly while Ian Paisley,
exercising his No Surrender mentality, can do nothing other than
fight the rearguard battles of the past and watch from the sidelines
as the peace process advances.
That the Ulster Unionist Party met with Sinn Fein on Wednesday, in
full party delegations, was a second significant step although it was
disappointing that David Trimble in post meeting interviews laboured
the decommissioning argument.
His attempt to snag the previous day's progress with this old
problem, however, raises the point that this process is about the
primacy of politics, not of arms.
In the last four major elections Sinn Fein's electoral mandate has
grown significantly with two MPs and 18 Assembly members in the
North, a TD in the South as well as up to 100 councillors across the
32 counties.
This by any democratic standard, is an important mandate and should
be respected and respected all the more because of the heavy cost
Sinn Fein representatives paid for that mandate. Almost 20 Sinn Fein
members and members of their families, have been killed by loyalists
and only last week we commemorated councillor John Davey, who was
shot dead by loyalists.
The cost of unionist `majority rule' democracy has cost us all too
much, let us now accept the democratic will of the electorate and
build on the week's progress.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)