A President for All Ireland

A MILESTONE has been marked this month with Sinn Féin’s Ard Fheis held in Belfast for the very first time since the party was founded in 1905.
Sinn Féin is the only truly all-Ireland party and delegates from all of the 32 counties continue the drive for a united Ireland and a New Republic.
We are living in a time of great challenge for the Irish people. The Irish economy has been decimated, economic sovereignty has been surrendered to the IMF and the EU, and it is ordinary working families who are being made to pay the price.
People are seeking a new way forward and a new kind of politics.
Republican politics and republican values were never more required or relevant than in the Ireland of 2011.
October 27th will see an Irish Presidential election. So far, discussion of the Presidential campaign has been marked by the absence of an alternative, progressive vision for Ireland based on the republican values of citizenship.
Across this island, more and more citizens are looking to Sinn Féin for leadership.
Over recent weeks and months, Sinn Féin, at all levels, has been involved in a discussion on whether the party should stand a candidate in the Presidential election. A decision will be taken by the newly-elected Ard Chomhairle at its first meeting this month.
Curiously, given that the current President, Mary McAleese, is from the Six Counties, few in the media are raising the anomaly of Irish citizens in the north-east of Ireland being denied the right to vote for the President of Ireland.
Irish citizens living in Ireland should have the right to vote for the President of Ireland. To deny them that right is discrimination.
Whoever the new President is, they need to be an all-Ireland President, a President for all our people, including the Irish Diaspora.
As we approach the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising, that President should embody the values and principles of the 1916 Proclamation – Irish unity, independence and the cause of social justice and equality.
The new President needs to continue the work of reaching out to unionists, ensuring them of their rightful and treasured place in a united Ireland.
The new President needs to give hope to our people at this time of great challenge by outlining a vision of a better Ireland, one in which the people of Ireland take control of their own destiny, an Ireland based on social justice and equality – a New Republic.