Belfast, Northern Ireland - A compromise plan to save Northern Ireland's Catholic-Protestant government is unraveling because the major Protestant party is badly split on whether to accept it, a senior party official said Tuesday.
The politician told The Associated Press that 39 percent of the Democratic Unionist Party's lawmakers voted against the proposed agreement Monday in a behind-closed-doors ballot, compromising the leadership of Democratic Unionist leader Peter Robinson.
Robinson has spent the past week in round-the-clock talks with the Irish Catholics of Sinn Fein to negotiate a salvation plan for their 2 1/2-year-old coalition, the central achievement of Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord. But Robinson has said he won't - or can't - move forward unless he takes the vast majority of his party with him.
Sinn Fein triggered Northern Ireland's political crisis this month by threatening to withdraw from the coalition. Sinn Fein leaders says they're fed up waiting for the Protestant side to accept terms for taking control of Northern Ireland's justice system, a move that Britain hoped to make in 2008.
Power-sharing requires the involvement of the largest Irish nationalist and British "unionist" parties, so a Sinn Fein pullout would wreck the administration and trigger early Assembly elections.
Sinn Fein is anxious to avoid international blame for any government collapse, so have kept talking longer than expected. The Democratic Unionists appear most worried about losing their No. 1 place in Northern Ireland politics in any election, which they fear would happen if they concede to too many of Sinn Fein's demands.
Democratic Unionist and Sinn Fein leaders both took a compromise package Monday to their party lawmakers. The British and Irish governments, who brokered the text of the proposed agreement, had expected both parties to give rubber-stamp approval.
The two prime ministers, Gordon Brown of Britain and Brian Cowen of Ireland, were so confident of imminent success that they both planned to travel to Northern Ireland to announce the breakthrough at a press conference.
While Sinn Fein lawmakers broadly backed the deal as expected, the Democratic Unionists reversed course, saying more work needed to be done. Robinson and other senior negotiators wouldn't discuss what specifically had gone wrong.
On Tuesday, a well-placed politician on the inside said Robinson encountered strong criticism from a vocal minority, including a few former allies. He put the plan to a ballot - and 14 of the party's 36 lawmakers rejected it, far more than anticipated.
The politician, who says he was among those who voted against the deal, spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because all Democratic Unionist lawmakers are under orders not to tell journalists what happened.
The politician criticized the proposed deal as guaranteeing too many of Sinn Fein's demands and too few of the Democratic Unionists' own. He said several members threatened to quit the party if Robinson accepted it.
Robinson didn't comment as he resumed talks Tuesday with British and Irish government officials and Sinn Fein at Hillsborough Castle southwest of Belfast, where the diplomatic marathon began nine days ago. Their talks typically have run past 3 a.m. each night, pushing many negotiators to the edge of exhaustion.
Sinn Fein negotiator Gerry Kelly said his side was willing to "clarify" points but would not renegotiate the proposed agreement.
When asked if Sinn Fein would keep negotiating as long as it took to secure agreement with the Democratic Unionists, Kelly said, "You can't talk forever."
In exchange for dropping their veto on the transfer of justice powers, Democratic Unionist negotiators are demanding greater rights for hard-line Protestant fraternal groups, whose drum-thumping marches stoke conflict with the Catholic minority every summer.
The plan on offer includes some concessions to the Protestants' desire to regain rights to march past several particularly hostile Catholic districts - but only if local agreements can be negotiated, an unlikely prospect. British authorities restricted the parades following widespread rioting in the mid-1990s.