THE REPUBLICAN socialist political grouping Éirígí is to contest the local elections in Northern Ireland which will be held on the same day as the Assembly poll in May, the party announced at its ardfheis in west Belfast yesterday.
About 140 members from across Ireland attended the conference in the Culturlann centre on Falls Road, where delegates voted in favour of running candidates in the council elections.
Éirígí, which was formed in April 2006, has yet to decide in how many of the North’s 26 local government areas it will stand or how many candidates it will put forward. A party spokesman said it was unlikely it would run candidates in the general election in the Republic.
Its Dublin-based chairman Brian Leeson said Northern Ireland was an “irreformably corrupt, sectarian state” but nonetheless Éirígí believed now was the time to contest the local elections.
“We believe there is a real appetite for a radical voice to emerge from working-class communities that will forcefully challenge the British occupation and economic exploitation and deprivation,” Mr Leeson added.
Éirígí has been involved in a number of protest campaigns since it was established, including the Shell to Sea protests. It opposes the Belfast Agreement and Sinn Féin’s support for the powersharing Stormont administration.
Éirígí states it opposes the use of violence to achieve a united Ireland because it believes it is counter-productive.
Its general secretary is Breandán Mac Cionnaith, who has spearheaded the annual nationalist protests against Orangemen parading from Drumcree down the nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown, Co Armagh.