The British Minister for Northern Ireland, Chris Heaton-Harris, has promised Thursday that the Assembly elections will be held in the first quarter of 2023, a day after delaying the deadline for the holding of these elections.
«I give myself two six-week periods, which means that (there will be elections) in the first three months of next year,» he explained in statements to the British television channel Sky News. Thus, he stressed that he is convinced that they will take place within that period.
Heaton-Harris stated that the problems deriving from the Protocol for Northern Ireland will be solved through «negotiations» and «showing trust and respect with the European Commission», in view of the political paralysis in Northern Ireland.
The minister announced on Wednesday a law that sets a new deadline, previously stipulated for December 8, with the possibility of postponing the holding of elections for another six weeks with the aim of «creating the time and space necessary for talks between the Government and the EU Commission to develop and for the parties in Northern Ireland to work together to re-establish the devolved institutions as soon as possible».
The Stormont Assembly has ahead of it a process to restore the institutionality of Northern Irish devolved government now with the republican Sinn Féin party at the helm, following its victory in last May’s elections.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) refuses to return to the Executive until the dispute over the Northern Ireland Protocol is resolved on its terms, so the process has been blocked for months after a failed vote to nominate the Stormont Speaker and Deputy Speaker.
Sinn Féin, led by Michelle O’Neill, won 27 of the 90 seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly and is currently the leading political force ahead of the DUP (25) and the Alliance Party (17). The Ulster Unionist Party has nine seats and the Social Democratic and Labor Party has eight seats.
