Finance minister is only candidate for post and will take over from Peter Robinson when he steps down on 11 January

Northern Ireland’s finance minister, Arlene Foster, will be elected leader of the Democratic Unionist party on Thursday night, paving the way for her to become first minister of the region.

A special electoral college will gather at an east Belfast hotel, and Foster is the only candidate for the leadership.

The outgoing DUP leader, Peter Robinson, will stand down as first minister on 11 January, when the Stormont assembly returns from holiday.

Foster will take over that position, too, meaning Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales will all have female first ministers.



The Fermanagh-born former Ulster Unionist, who defected to the DUP in opposition to David Trimble’s moves towards compromise with republicans, has pledged to lead Northern Ireland “into an even better place”.

During the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Foster witnessed at first hand IRA violence against the unionist community in the border region. Her police officer father was shot and wounded by the IRA at her family’s farm, and a few years later a school bus she was travelling on was bombed. The IRA’s target in the latter attack was the bus driver, a part-time member of the security forces.

Foster has said it is now right to share power with the IRA’s political allies during the conflict, Sinn Féin. On Wednesday she joined Sinn Féin’s deputy first minister, Martin McGuinness, on a visit to a temporary refuge centre for the first of 50 Syrian refugee families to be relocated in Northern Ireland.

Foster said of her DUP leadership candidacy: “There can be few people in Northern Ireland who grew up during the Troubles who were not acutely aware of politics. My own personal experience has obviously shaped my views but my involvement in politics was not based solely as a reaction to the IRA terrorist campaign but on the firm belief that the union is good for Northern Ireland, a desire to strengthen that link and to make Northern Ireland the best it can be.

“I love this country. We only have to look at the sporting world to see the success this small place has on the global stage. I want to make Northern Ireland great again.”