ANALYSISDr Ian Paisley has bowed to the inevitable and promised his successor a fresh start, writes Frank Millar
THAT IT was foretold in the pages of this newspaper and elsewhere does nothing to reduce the impact of last night's dramatic announcement - or the sense of a historic changing of the unionist guard. And yes, too, in various parts of these islands, at least some slight apprehension about what will follow the Rev Ian Paisley's formal resignation as Northern Ireland's First Minister in May.
Indeed, nowhere might that be more acutely felt than in the party Dr Paisley founded and led for 35 years - or by the man now expected to inherit the crown, Peter Robinson. Sentiment apart, this is a profoundly significant and challenging moment for the entire membership of the Democratic Unionist Party. As reported in The Irish Times in January, and again last month, the majority of its Westminster MPs had been pressing for a resignation timetable providing for an "orderly transition". After some signs of reluctance on the part of his loyal family, Dr Paisley has bowed to the inevitable and obliged with a gracious public statement promising his eventual successor a clean break and a fresh start.
"This is not the Church of Rome," avowed the once seemingly infallible Dr Paisley: "This is not apostolic succession and I have no right to say who will succeed me. The person will succeed me when the mark is on the paper and the ballot is cast. Whoever that will be will have my support and encouragement and if he wants to take my advice, he will get that advice if he asks for it. But I will not be sitting like Putin in Russia saying to the president, 'This is the way you have to go'. When I make a break, it is a break."
The tributes will attest that, not for the first time in recent years, "the Big Man" rose to the challenge, acquitted himself with dignity, embraced the unpalatable option and did what he had come to accept needed to be done. And the sense of relief in the DUP will be palpable, heightening renewed feelings of personal affection and gratitude - along, perhaps, with that small niggling doubt about a future without the once dominant, all-powerful figure under whom they have all prospered and so often sheltered. "Be careful what you wish for," as the saying has it.
That protective Paisley shield will be withdrawn in May, leaving only the second leader in the DUP's history to face formidable issues potentially complicated by the requirements of forthcoming elections for both the European and Westminster Parliaments.
As Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams sharply reminded last weekend, Northern Ireland isn't quite settled yet.
Of course, Dr Paisley's announcement need not trigger alarm bells signalling the imminent collapse of the powersharing administration at Stormont. Mr Adams was right to wonder aloud about the DUP's internal leadership manoeuvres and their possible implications for the next phase of devolution - the planned transfer of policing and justice powers.
However, the Sinn Féin president knows as well as any that - long before last year's historic breakthrough - the so-called "modernising" tendency within the DUP was more than up for a deal with republicans. What Mr Adams came to understand was that it was Dr Paisley's personal imprimatur that would make it stick.
Had Dr Paisley been forced out by a "rejectionist" wing of the DUP - similar to that led for so long by newly appointed Minister Jeffrey Donaldson against David Trimble's Ulster Unionist leadership - then Mr Adams's fears and misgivings would have grown incalculably overnight. As it happens, the real danger over recent weeks - certainly as detected by some Ministers and officials - was that a truculent and increasingly isolated Dr Paisley might have dug his heels in over the policing and justice issues in a manner that might have bound, or at least made life difficult for, any successor.
From that point of view, the timetable announced by Dr Paisley might seem to offer London and Dublin their best hope that the devolution process might yet be completed under new DUP management later this year or early next. Yet they should not take it - or Mr Robinson, if indeed it is he - for granted.
It was Dr Paisley, not the modernisers, who decided to make Sinn Féin's acceptance of the Police Service of Northern Ireland the prerequisite for the restoration of devolved government. The modernisers were as happy as any with the outcome, but had feared this issue could become "the new decommissioning" roadblock to devolution or, alternatively, the pretext for more "concessions" to republicans in return for something that should obtain in any democratic society. And the modernisers - every bit as much as former DUP voters who defected to MEP Jim Allister's "Traditional Unionist Voice" in a recent by-election - made no secret of their distaste for the "Chuckle Brothers" routine that came to characterise Dr Paisley's friendly working relationship with Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.
If the impatience for a change of leadership was fuelled by unease about Dr Paisley's evident enjoyment of power-sharing with Sinn Féin, then a change of tone and demeanour is the least that may be expected.
However, if the new DUP leader is to overcome the current perceived lack of unionist "confidence" and agree a process for devolving policing and justice powers, it would seem certain that the issue of the IRA and the continued existence of the army council will also be firmly back on the agenda.
Another major negotiation, then, would seem to beckon once Dr Paisley has departed the scene and the DUP has completed its election process. However, for all their confidence about the new era in the longer term, London and Dublin should not assume the new DUP leadership will consider itself tied even to a revised timetable for completing devolution by May of next year.
Party unity, the challenge posed by Mr Allister and the potential for a further unionist realignment ahead of a certain European, and possible Westminster, election will also be crowding the new man's agenda.
Frank Millar is London Editor