Carlos FresnedaLondon Correspondent
London Correspondent
Updated Friday, March 29, 2024-15:42
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The resignation as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Jeffrey Donaldson, accused of
"sexual crimes"
, has once again plunged Northern Ireland into a crisis, just two months after the creation of a "power-sharing" Government between Unionists and
Sinn Féin
Republicans , led by Chief Minister Michelle O'Neill.
The resignation of Donaldson, 61, occurred symbolically in the middle of Good Friday and in the run-up to the
26th anniversary of the historic peace agreement
. His sudden announcement came, however, in connection with an investigation opened by the Northern Ireland police into a complaint of "sexual offences."
The unionist politician was detained and questioned on Thursday night along with a 57-year-old woman, accused of complicity in an incident that occurred years ago. The two will appear before the judge throughout the month of April.
Jeffrey Donaldson, who was also the most senior Northern Irish MP in Westminster (since 1997), made public his resignation on Friday as president of the DUP, which automatically suspended him as a member of the party in light of the allegations.
Gavin Robinson
, 39, until now the party's
number two
, is the new interim leader of the DUP until a contest is called. Fellow unionist
Emma Little-Pengelly
, deputy chief minister since February 3, has warned that the crisis will not affect the newly formed "power-sharing" government with Sinn Féin.
Jeffrey Donaldson had been elected as leader of the DUP in 2021, after the internal turbulence that led to the fall of former Chief Minister
Arlene Foster
, succeeded by
Edwin Poots
, who lasted barely a month in his position. The
hard line
taken by Donaldson, resisting forming a unity Government with Sinn Féin after the victory of the former political arm of the IRA in the elections, left a
power vacuum of more than two years in Belfast
.
His criticism of the British Government, for having agreed to create an
"internal customs"
between England and Northern Ireland after
Brexit
, ultimately served to achieve greater flexibility for the EU in the so-called
Windsor Framework
. At the beginning of the year, Donaldson obtained new guarantees from London to remove internal trade barriers, which opened the doors to the incorporation of the DUP into the Unity Government and the formation of the new Stormont Assembly.
Despite his fame as a representative of the hardline unionist wing, Donaldson had in recent months achieved a reputation as a pragmatic politician. Born into a Presbyterian family, he enlisted as a young man in the Ulster Defense Regiment (UDR) and was active in the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). Opposed at the time to the Good Friday Agreement, considering that it was full of
concessions to the IRA
, he gradually moderated his position. In 2016 he was distinguished as
Sir
for his political merits.