Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin is organised on an all-Ireland basis, has close links with the IRA and seeks an end to the partition of Ireland, which it contends is the cause of conflict, injustice and division.
The growth in electoral support for Sinn Féin party dates from hunger strikes of 1981 when Bobby Sands won the constituency of Fermanagh-South Tyrone in a by-election held in April 1981. Two months later, two hunger strikers won seats in the Dáil.
In 1983, Gerry Adams was elected MP for West Belfast. He lost the seat in 1992 to the SDLP's Joe Hendron, when the tactical voting of residents of the Shankill proved decisive. He regained it at the general election in 1997. On the same day Sinn Féin's chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, defeated the DUP's Willie McCrea in Mid Ulster. Overall, the party won 16.05% of the votes in the 1997 British general election, but the party's two MPs, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, refused to take up their Westminster seats, adhering to the policy of abstention.
Sinn Féin won more than 17.5% of the votes in the Assembly Elections of June 1998 and has 18 members at the Legislative Assembly. Under the d'Hondt system, the party was allocated two Ministerial posts in the new Northern Ireland Executive. Martin McGuinnes serves as Minister for Education while Bairbre de Brún is Minister for Health.
The party also won a seat in Dáil Éireann in 1997 when Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin topped the poll in Cavan-Monaghan. He became the first Sinn Féin TD to take a seat in the Irish Parliament.
