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Mark Durkan: Social Democratic and Labour Party
Mark Durkan is the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party. He succeeded John hume on November 2001.
Mark Durkan is the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party. He succeeded John hume on November 2001. Born in1960 , he was the Deputy First Minister before the suspension of the Northern Ireland Executive, the executive body for Northern Ireland.
SDLP suffered a major setback with the retirement of Hume since he took away with him a chunk of European electorate resulting in the emergence of Sinn Fein as a principal national entity. Therefore filling that vacuum was a huge challenge for Durkan.
Durkan set off by making efforts to restructure the party, which was at the brink of decline. He in fact earned a bad name when he tried to give preference to young politicians in the party rather than old ones.
Durkan is facing the gravest trials of his leadership and his party with the approaching general and local elections.
