SINN FÉIN SUPPORT:SINN FÉIN's Martin McGuinness is "a fit and proper" candidate for the presidency since he is already fit and proper to hold the role of Northern Ireland's deputy first minister, former British secretary of state for Northern Ireland Shaun Woodward has said.
The Labour MP said Mr McGuinness had increasingly demonstrated an ability to command support from beyond one community in Northern Ireland. The entry of Mr McGuinness into the election “‘demonstrates the success of the peace process”, Mr Woodward said. He was speaking at an event at the British Labour Party’s Liverpool conference.
Questioned by The Irish Timesabout Mr McGuinness's decision to contest the election, Mr Woodward said he personally would prefer to see Labour's candidate Michael D Higgins succeeding President Mary McAleese.
But he said he could not understand how people in the Republic made a distinction between North and South: “If any individual is up for being first minister or deputy first minister from whatever political party he or she may be drawn, if they are good enough for the North then, frankly, they ought to be good enough for the South.
“If you are a fit and proper person for the North, it seems to me to be a very strange set of rules that have been put on the table to say, ‘You’re fine to be a fit and proper person to be first minister or deputy first minister, but you couldn’t be a fit and proper person in the South.’
“I would simply say to people before they reach those judgments, as always in politics, ‘think first before you speak’,” he said.