ABSTRACT
At the referendum on 22 May 1998, on a turnout of 81 percent, the Northern Ireland electorate endorsed the Agreement arrived at on Good Friday, 10 April 1998, by eight of the province's ten political parties elected to the Forum in 1996. Indeed, consistent with previous attempts to create devolved structures within Northern Ireland, the UK parliament and its executive, embodied in the role of Secretary of State, will continue to exert a strategic role in relation to both reserved and excepted matters. The 1998 Agreement does not entail a derogation from the sovereignty of either government and so does not introduce a regime of joint authority in relation to Northern Ireland. For the first time in Northern Ireland's history a nationalist party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, emerged with the largest vote share, as measured by the proportion of first preference votes it polled: It secured 22 percent of first preference votes and 24 seats in the Assembly.
