Edwin Poots resigns as leader of Northern Ireland's government
The leader of the senior party in Northern Ireland’s government, Edwin Poots, resigned on June 17 after colleagues revolted over a deal to appoint new leaders to the Protestant-Catholic power-sharing administration.
Poots’s resignation came hours after he nominated Democratic Unionist Party legislator Paul Givan to be Northern Ireland’s new first minister. Michelle O’Neill of the Irish nationalist party Sinn Féin was reappointed deputy first minister.
Sinn Féin had threatened not to fill the post of deputy because of a feud about protections for the Irish language. But under the power-sharing arrangements set up as part of Northern Ireland’s peace accord, a government can’t be formed unless both roles are filled.
