DUP set to announce successor to Paisley

DUP Assembly members will today decide who should succeed the Reverend Ian Paisley as party leader.

Stormont Finance Minister Peter Robinson is the runaway favourite to be chosen by the party’s 36 Assembly members as Mr Paisley’s successor and Northern Ireland’s First Minister Designate.

The vote is the first part of a two-phase process which will decide who will take over the party leadership.

The Assembly Group’s recommendation will have to be ratified at a meeting of the party’s executive in Belfast on Thursday.

The DUP has only ever had one leader, Mr Paisley, since it was formed in 1971.

Mr Robinson has been deputy leader for almost 28 years – resigning from the post briefly in 1986 after pleading guilty in a court in the Republic to unlawful assembly after he led 500 loyalists angered by the Anglo-Irish Agreement in an incursion into the Co Monaghan town of Clontibret.

A former estate agent, he was first elected as the MP for East Belfast in the 1979 general election, winning the seat by just 64 votes from veteran unionist Bill Craig.

An astute and articulate politician, he built a strong powerbase in East Belfast and in Castlereagh Council.

In the post Good Friday Agreement period of devolution, he impressed as the Regional Development Minister in the Stormont Executive even though the DUP refused to attend cabinet meetings.

The 59-year-old East Belfast MP has been credited with masterminding the DUP’s move towards power-sharing, its emergence as the North's most successful political party, for wooing young unionist talent away from the Ulster Unionists and for building a strong electoral machine and slick media operation.

Mr Robinson has been serving as the Minister for Finance and Personnel since power-sharing resumed last May.

His wife Iris has been the MP for Strangford since 2001.

Stormont Economy Minister Nigel Dodds is believed to be the only senior figure capable of running the East Belfast MP close in a leadership contest.

However, since Mr Paisley announced in March he would be stepping down after next month’s Stormont investment conference aimed at American businesses, party sources have speculated Mr Robinson and Mr Dodds would avoid a divisive leadership contest and form a dream ticket.

The 49-year-old North Belfast MP is the favourite to be chosen today as the party’s deputy leader and to eventually become leader.

After the vote, Mr Robinson will meet Finance Minister Brian Cowen, who is visiting Belfast.

Mr Cowen, who was elected the leader of Fianna Fáil last week, will discuss the economy with Mr Robinson.

However the meeting will provide a glimpse of how unionist relations with the Irish Government will be when both men take over the helm of their respective administrations.

Mr Cowen will also meet Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness during his Belfast visit.