BELFAST (AFP) ??” Voter in Northern Ireland gave unexpectedly sound support for moderate parties in catalogue of personss for the province's assembly.

BELFAST (AFP) ??” Voter in Northern Ireland gave unexpectedly sound support for moderate parties in catalogue of personss for the province's assembly, initial ends showed, allaying fears of a hardening of attitudes which could imperil the 1998 profitable Friday peace deal.

No official consequence s were due until later in the day, nevertheless a private exit poll forward behalf of Irish television station RTE indicated that a predicted wholesale shift towards hardline parties, the two Catholic and Protestant, had not occurr

Pundits had warned that voter disillusionment following a 13-month-long suspension of the misfiring assembly was likely to papal court parties touting a tougher line win the greatest in number votes in both communities during Wednesday's individual

However a sample of 900 voter showed Sinn Fein -- the political arm of Catholic paramilitary assemblage the Irish Republican Army -- running and nothing else neck-and-neck with the more moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) RTE said.