Northern Ireland To Hold Election Amid Government Failure

Britain's Cabinet minister for Northern Ireland declares the territory's unity government must be dissolved and early elections will take place on March 2.

Secretary of State James Brokenshire declared he had no power to compel both sides in Northern Ireland's nearly decade-old government coalition to work together as the territory's 1998 peace accord intended.

Brokenshire expressed hope that the British Protestants of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Irish Catholics of Sinn Fein would repair their broken relationship after the vote.

At stake is the revival of cross-community government, which has been sought by generations of peacemakers as the most logical way to end a conflict that has claimed 3,700 lives since the 1960s.

Against the odds of history, a government led jointly by Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists took office in 2007 and had governed Northern Ireland with just a few blow-ups.

Sinn Fein states it forced the government's collapse to protest the refusal of the Democratic Unionist leader, First Minister Arlene Foster, to step aside voluntarily.

Sinn Fein complains against the Green Energy Program

As they left Stormont, Sinn Fein leaders blamed the Democratic Unionists of poisoning their partnership by treating them abusively. Sinn Fein complained against the Green Energy Program, which is expected to cost Northern Ireland, a land of just 1.8 million citizens, the sum of £500 million ($600 million) in ill-regulated and open-ended subsidies.

Sinn Fein lawmaker Conor Murphy stated: "There can be no return unless there's fundamental change in how the DUP approach power-sharing." 

Foster accused Sinn Fein of pursuing another election barely 10 months after the last one to advance its own agenda and become the most powerful political party in Northern Ireland.

She declared that they have forced an election that risks Northern Ireland's future and its stability and suits nobody apart from themselves.

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