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Dublin: Northern Ireland leader Ian Paisley warned his Catholic power-sharing partners on Wednesday that they must help elect his Protestant successor, or risk collapsing their peacemaking coalition within a week.
Paisley plans to step down today as "first minister," the senior position atop the year-old Northern Ireland administration. He will be replaced by Finance Minister Peter Robinson, who already has replaced Paisley as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, leading voice of the British Protestant majority in Northern Ireland.
But coalition partners Sinn Fein, the major Irish Catholic-backed party, is withholding support for Robinson amid a wider showdown over whether the Northern Ireland administration must receive powers from Britain over the territory's justice system.
Britain, Ireland and Sinn Fein all wanted this transfer of authority to happen by last month.
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