EDWIN Poots was elected as the new leader of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party yesterday.
The Stormont Agriculture Minister was vying with the party’s Westminster leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson to replace Arlene Foster, who announced her resignation last month.
The Lagan Valley MLA won by a razor-thin 19 votes to 17 in the poll carried out within the party’s 36-strong electoral college. It was the first contested leadership vote in the DUP’s 50-year history.
In his acceptance speech, Poots, who recently underwent cancer surgery, pledged that the DUP would be the “authentic voice” for Unionism under his leadership.
“It is an immense honour and pleasure to stand here today in this position, it is not a position that I expected to be in some weeks ago,” he said in an address at party headquarters in east Belfast.
“However, things can change quite radically.”
Poots added: “I’m looking forward to a positive relationship right across Northern Ireland with my party colleagues and indeed with people from other parties.
“I think the opportunities for Northern Ireland are great, the opportunities for us to make Northern Ireland a great place after this 100 years has passed and we move into a new 100 years.”
Poots praised the “resilience” of Northern Irish people through the first 100 years of its existence.
“It’s that resilience that we are going to go forward [with] and make Northern Ireland a good place,” he said in an address at party headquarters in east Belfast.
“My father was a founder member of the DUP some 50 years ago, and I joined after the death of the Reverend Robert Bradford MP in 1981 and throughout all of that period this party has been the authentic voice of Unionism and will continue to be the authentic voice of Unionism under my leadership.”
Foster was ousted after party colleagues became unhappy with her leadership. She will step down from that role on May 28, and as Stormont First Minister at the end of June.
Poots will be leader designate until Foster formally stands down. His election will now go to the party executive for ratification.
The DUP politicians eligible to vote comprised the party’s eight MPs and 28 Assembly members.
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