Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): Ian Paisley bowed to the growing discontent within the DUP yesterday, and announced that he will resign as Northern Ireland's First Minister in May.
As OurKingdom noted last month, the favourite to succeed him is Finance Minister Peter Robinson, with Enterprise Minister Nigel Dodds likely to take over as deputy leader of the DUP.
The strength of Robinson's position has been emphasised by an endorsement from newly promoted junior minister Jeffrey Donaldson, a moderate in DUP terms and the party's most high-profile convert from the Ulster Unionists.
Donaldson's former colleagues reacted to Paisley's announced with a note of bitterness: "I think that when we come to look back on all of this, the Paisley era over the last 40 years has been a catastrophe for unionism quite honestly," UUP leader Sir Reg Empey said. "He has divided every single unionist institution and every single Protestant institution."
While the animosity between the two parties should not be under-estimated, there have been suggestions that Paisley's departure could pave the way for a DUP-UUP merger. This could prove a double-edged sword however, gaining seats for unionism at the expense of depressing the overall unionist vote.
A more immediate priority for Robinson will be to see off the challenge of MEP Jim Allister, whose use of the Freedom of Information Act did much to seal Paisley's demise. Taking back the European Parliament seat which Allister won while still a DUP member will be a key target.
A quarter of a century after Ian Paisley helped to bring down Brian Faulkner's power-sharing government, his own party faces an unexpected threat from the right. Fortunately, all the signs are that if history is repeating itself, it will be closer to farce than to tragedy this time around.
Nevertheless, Sinn Féin and the SDLP will be wary of the consequences of DUP attempts to appease its own hardliners. In the end, ironically, it was nationalists who were sorriest to see Paisley go.
