BELFAST — Old enemies geared up on Sunday to rule Northern Ireland together after a landmark vote gave them a chance to turn the province's 1998 Good Friday peace accord into reality.
A decision by Protestant unionists to share power with Catholic republicans has hauled a seven-year peace drive back from the brink and taken it safely over its biggest hurdle yet.
Britain hands back home rule at midnight on Monday, and a new coalition Cabinet will meet on Thursday.
It will take over powers that have been the responsibility of British ministers who have shuttled between London and Belfast and will reactivate political links spanning the island of Ireland that have lain dormant while the pact struggled.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate David Trimble threw the peace process a lifeline by persuading a small majority of the executive council of his Ulster Unionist Party to back a quick return to power sharing.
But his party, which favors continued links with Britain, remains deeply split.
Trimble, wary of possible pit-falls ahead, gave a warning that its success depended on Irish Republican Army guerrillas living up to their vow to put their arms "beyond use" and finally ending a long anti-British conflict.
Rancor that has swirled for years will not be easily erased, and Trimble has unionist critics breathing down his neck.
IRA political ally Sinn Fein welcomed Trimble's vote but smarted at his suggestion its members were not real democrats. "These people ain't house trained yet," Trimble snapped at a news conference.
But for all that, the province at last has a hope that a coalition government is at hand that may gradually succeed in ending enmity that has tangled its politics for generations.
"All our problems have not been solved but one thing I am clear about is that with the political institutions up and running and politics functioning as they properly should, difficulties we have will be much easier to solve," Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson said.
"Northern Ireland today has a second chance to get it right," he said, announcing the relaunch of the short-lived Protestant-Catholic ruling coalition which he controversially mothballed in February.
In Washington, President Clinton hailed the vote, saying "the wind is back in the sails of peace" in Northern Ireland.
Political analyst Sydney Elliott said the vote gave the chance to set up power sharing institutions again and move ahead.
"As far as the Ulster Unionist Party is concerned, it is still visibly divided. What we might see now is some effort to bring a degree of unity into the party behind current policies," said Elliott, a lecturer at Queen's University, Belfast.
By championing power sharing, Trimble risked losing the UUP leadership. Now he needs the IRA to deliver on its promises or party critics will targeting his leadership.
Trimble's opponents — who say he has backtracked on a demand for the IRA to disarm before sharing power with Sinn Fein — licked their wounds.
"What I want to see is the republican movement beginning to disarm and to do it properly and quickly. And if they don't do it properly and quickly then clearly we are going to have to review our participation in that government," Trimble's archrival Jeffrey Donaldson said.
Trimble will be first minister of the new coalition government. But Donaldson, through his efforts to block Trimble's power-sharing plan, is being seen as a future party leader.
"Almost a 50-50 split is there," Elliott told Reuters.