>From MCELROY@zodiac.rutgers.edu Sun May 23 13:45:51 1993

Partial Results from Northern Ireland Elections

The Democratic Unionists, founded and led by Ian Paisley,
increased their share of the vote by 10 percent to 30 percent
in Protestant parts of Belfast.

With 461 of 586 seats in Northern Ireland's 26 councils tallied
when counting ended for  the day, the Ulster Unionists had won
167 seats and the Democratic Unionists had captured 98. Both
parties insist upon Northern Ireland's continued union with
Britain, but the DUP campaigned hard against negotiations.

Nigel Dodds, a former lord mayor of Belfast, declared the
Democratic Unionist's increased vote showed that 'the
unionist people are fed up with the talks process and
being sold down the river by the British government.'

On the nationalist side, the SDLP and Sinn Fein each scored
victories in different parts of Northern Ireland. But the
ballots from west Belfast, a center of Catholic alienation
and IRA support, were not due to be counted until Friday.

In Dungannon, 50 miles west of Belfast, Sinn Fein council members
Ray McMahon and Francie Molloy topped the  polls in their
wards for  the first time.

Locals said support for the party was strengthened by a string
of murders in the area by loyalist gunmen. In recent years,
loyalists have shot to death an elderly  mother and father
of an IRA prisoner, a father and son in their home, and a
young man and his uncle in their shop, as well as two Sinn
Fein council members. Molloy replaced a third Sinn Fein 
councilor gunned down by British soldiers while on an IRA
mission in October 1990.

In predominantly rural catholic area, the SDLP beat Sinn Fein
and appeared poised to wrest control of key councils from
unionists.

Brid Rogers, a veteran SDLP activist, said the emerging 
pattern was of gains for the SDLP in areas of low
threat from loyalists and gains for Sinn Fein where the
population felt most under threat.

As the results are made known, Patrick Mayhew, Britain's
direct ruler in N.I., told the House of Commons he
intended to press ahead with his efforts to get
Northern Ireland's politicians back to the table
with the Irish government.

His three tiered talks initiative, which exclude Sinn Fein
because of its support of the IRA, ground to  a halt last
November 18 after months of deadlock.

 source: associate press