SDLP leader Colum Eastwood has launched the party’s election campaign.
Voters go to the polls on Thursday, March 2 to elect 90 MLA to Stormont.
Sinn Fein collapsed Stormont last month claiming there was corruption at the heart of government.
Mr Eastwood, who is standing again in Foyle, launched the party’s campaign in Lurgan, Co Armagh.
He said: “Thank you all for your welcome here. It’s good to be back in Upper Bann.
“I don’t think it’ll surprise anyone though if I say I’m a bit surprised to be here, less than 9 months later, launching another Assembly election campaign.
“But it has been no normal 9 months.
“The calendar has been filled with plenty of the unexpected and the unscheduled.
“Even to the occasional observer of politics, there is a general recognition that there has been a fair amount going on.
“Whether on these islands or further afield – this is a moment of massive political change.
“Much of that change has been difficult and dangerous.
“From the Trump presidency, to Brexit, to the rise of an all too familiar far-right, a threatening uncertainty hangs over all of our futures.
“Here in Northern Ireland – at the very moment when we most needed stability and certainty – our own government has collapsed and doubt remains as to whether the institutions can be put back together again.
“However, in this election we must not fall into the trap of allowing a philosophy of despair to prevail.
“If we are capable of imagining and recognising the dangerous political future which may lie ahead, we are equally capable of avoiding it.
“We are equally capable of changing it.
“If this is no ordinary time in politics then this can’t be an ordinary election.
“We can make change happen.
“That is what the SDLP will be offering the electorate on March 2nd.
“Bringing back the missing voice of Upper Bann
“Before addressing the continuing campaign that lies before us in the next few weeks, I would like say something about this particular constituency.
“There may have been a lot packed in during the last 9 months but there has also been something missing.
“Even as the noise and heat of the Assembly reverberated beyond its own walls over the last number of months, it has been more and more noticeable that there has been something missing.
“There has been a distinctive and definite voice absent.
“It is a voice that stands up for every community and all of the people in Lurgan, Craigavon and Portadown.
“It is a voice that never shies away from a good battle – in fact anyone and everyone knows that she is anything but shy.
But there have been many the better for it.
There have been many the better for the fact that she is always willing to fight the good fight.
It’s only been 9 months but we have missed that voice.
Upper Bann has missed that voice.
It’s time to bring it back.
On March 2nd it’s time to bring Dolores Kelly back to the Assembly.
A unique chance to Make Change Happen
In preparing to come here today, I was looking back at what I had said in a speech at our last Assembly election launch.
One paragraph in particular stood out,
“If we are honest, we know that politics and politicians everywhere don’t have the best of reputations at the moment.
But the reputation of Stormont’s current state is not to be mistaken for a natural weariness for those who preside over power.
It is not the same as elsewhere.
It is not the ordinary frustration of politics that can be felt in every democracy.
It goes much deeper than that.
The frustration that can tangibly be felt is the manifestation of a profound failure to grasp the promise of peace.
Ordinary voters understand that the politics of the place has failed to substantially evolve.
They understand that peace is not simply the absence of war.
For 9 years we have all faced and suffered from the absence of proper politics.
The annoyance and frustration that the public feel is far too often interpreted as apathy.
But frustration does not equal apathy.
Frustration carries its own energy. It is an energy which is hungry for change.
Frustration is felt by those who care about the health of our society, who care about their community and who care about the future of their families.
Frustration requires an understanding that things can and should be better.
It is not apathetic. It is a natural hunger for better.”
That was our message 9 months ago.
What was true then seems all the truer now.
What this election is really about
It is important to bear in mind that hunger for change in the weeks ahead.
There have been heroic attempts to formulate distractions and diversions about what this election in Northern Ireland is actually about.
Many have asked different questions about its true cause.
Is it about the ‘cash-for-ash’ scandal or is it about Brexit?
Is it about the arrogance of Arlene Foster or is it about an increasingly insecure and reactionary Sinn Féin?
There is always a danger in the North that because of our complex history we always end up complicating the present.
The truth of this election is a lot simpler.
It is an election about the collapse and failure of a government.
9 months on, the Fresh Start Government they offered is not only stale – it has more than a whiff of corruption about it.
That corruption of our politics doesn’t just apply to the DUP.
It is now 1 year since Sinn Féin knew about the true scale of the cash-for-ash scandal and its potential to cost our taxpayers’ nearly half a billion pounds.
Yet they sat on their hands until the media and the opposition raised questions.
Their Finance Minister did nothing.
The truth is that Sinn Féin called time when it suited themselves – not when it would have saved the public purse.
Standing up for equality, standing up for an Irish Language Act and standing up against corruption are all good slogans but you can’t wear the clothes of opposition and protest when you’ve held the power of government for so long.
They didn’t stand up for anything during last May’s Programme for Government negotiations.
Therefore this is an election about a DUP party and its special advisers which ran government like their own play thing and a weak Sinn Féin party that let them away with it.
A return and a renewal of partnership.
Changing that status quo is what this election is now about.
Some of the recent Sinn Féin slogans are actually unintentionally helpful in defining what is at stake.
Since Sinn Féin have been belatedly borrowing a lot of my own recent political positions – for example on,
– securing EU special status.
– attending the Trump White House.
– opposing an Arlene Foster led government while she still has questions to answer on the RHI scheme.
– on supporting a full public inquiry into the ‘cash-for-ash’ scandal.
I thought it was therefore only polite if I did a bit of my own barrowing.
Sinn Féin’s new northern leader has also repeatedly said that – if something is broke, you stop and you fix it.
It’s another good slogan and I couldn’t agree more.
There should be no return to the status quo.
This election is a chance to fix what has gone before.
It is a chance to fix the corruption and chaos that come to characterise our Executive.
Fixing this place will require a return and a renewal of real partnership.
In this election there are many different futures on offer – but the only future worth knowing is one which chooses co-operation.
Difference doesn’t have to mean division – it doesn’t have to mean deadlock.
In this election voters have a choice.
We are asking people to choose between two parties who have shown that they can’t work together or take the chance to choose differently – choose those of us who have shown that we can work together.
Choose parties who want to work together for the common good.
Relationship between Nationalism and Unionism
I have faced a lot of criticism because I have shown that myself and Mike Nesbitt can, despite our differences, work together.
I want to make clear today that no amount of criticism will change that commitment.
I will stick by it and I stand by it.
We will co-operate, compromise and if given the opportunity we will share power.
The SDLP and the Ulster Unionist parties will work together to make Northern Ireland work.
The reason and logic behind that commitment is simple.
For all the history and all the hurt, the Irish political equation always returns to the same solution.
This place only works if nationalism and unionism works together.
Sinn Féin have mocked the SDLP’s willingness to work with our unionists neighbours but it only gives insight into how far they still have to travel.
We stand by that vision of co-operation and partnership.
We stand by that vision of an Ireland in which different traditions can live and work and even argue with safety and security.
I would remind those who continue to criticise that it’s a vison that Wolfe Tone came up with a good name for many years ago – it’s called Irish republicanism.
On March 2nd – Make Change Happen
Therefore on March 2nd, Northern Ireland will head to the polls with a clear choice.
A choice between more of the same or the choice of partnership and progress.
At this election the SDLP is putting forward a new team – a new team that has the ability to govern for all.
We are offering voters the chance to change an establishment of old bigotry and old battles.
Change has come before and it is now calling again.
It is a change that is now well overdue.
Our new team can finally move us forward from a politics of only peace – to a politics which will bring fairness, opportunity and progress for all.
The SDLP is taking that message to every community and to every door across the North.
On March 2nd – Make Change Happen.
