WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- The Northern Irish Peace Process received the heaviest blow in its five-year history Friday.
The the hard-line Democratic Unionist Party, opposed to power-sharing with Catholics, won a majority of seats from the province's majority 900,000 Protestants.
In results announced from Wednesday's elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly, the DUP, led by the Rev. Ian Paisley, soared to 30 seats -- up from 22 in the 108-seat assembly. They outstripped the moderate Ulster Unionist Party led by Nobel Peace Prize-winner David Trimble, which rose from 26 to 27 seats.
Paisley's DUP is adamantly opposed to sharing power with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army led by Gerry Adams. But the election also confirmed SF's rise to become the main representative of Northern Ireland's 600,000 Catholics. They soared from 18 seats in the old assembly to 24 in the new one, with the more moderate Social and Democratic Labor parties slumping from 24 to 18.
