New DUP Chair Witholds Handshake From New Vice Chair

Why did newly elected DUP Chair of Strabane District Council withold handshake from newly elected Sinn Féin Vice-Chair Dan Kelly after Council AGM on Wednesday night?

Such actions are governed by the same apartheid mindset which underpinned the policy of exclusion against Sinn Féin Councillors on Strabane District Council throughout the 1980s/90s. In those years Unionist parties where aided and abetted in this policy by the collaboration of some so-called nationalist councillors who were duly rewarded with crumbs from the table.

Sinn Féin’s emergence as the largest party on Council heralded a new era of equality whereby Council positions were filled on the basis of proportionality.

While Unionist parties on Strabane District Council can no longer manoeuvre to withhold positions from Sinn Féin, the withholding of the ‘handshake’ by the DUP is merely a symbolic remnant of the same apartheid mindset which still refuses to accept Sinn Féin’s democratic mandate, and in turn the many thousands who support our party within the district, as being equal.