Sinn Fein names new leader in Northern Ireland amid political crisis

The pro-republican Sinn Fein political party announced Monday that Michelle O'Neill was to be its new leader in Northern Ireland.

It follows the retirement of former paramilitary Martin McGuinness who had been deputy minister in the devolved parliament in Belfast.

His resignation from the post in the power sharing assembly has triggered a snap election in Northern Ireland.

O'Neill, 40, was regarded as the favorite to take over from McGuinness. As an elected member of the devolved parliament, she serves as health minister in the Northern Ireland Executive, which is the local cabinet.

In her first comment after being selected, O'Neill said that in succeeding McGuinness she was following in the footsteps of a giant, vowing to continue the work he had started.

O'Neill will lead Sinn Fein into the March 2 elections when the new political make up of the assembly will be decided by the region's voters.

In last year's elections for the assembly, Sinn Fein won the second largest number of seats after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Under the power sharing arrangements, the DUP chose a First Minister and Sinn Fein chose the deputy leader.

Following McGuinness' resignation as deputy leader, it meant the DUP's Arlene Foster automatically lost her job as first minister.

With the fallout between Sinn Fein and the DUP, it puts at risk the relative calm that the region has enjoyed since a peace formula ended decades of troubles between republicans and unionists over whether Northern Ireland should be part of the Irish Republic. More than 4,000 people died in the troubles which started in the 1960s. Endit