* Josias Cunningham; Northern Ireland Politician

Josias Cunningham, 66, who led Northern Ireland’s top Protestant party. Cunningham was elected president of the Ulster Unionist Council, the governing body of the Ulster Unionist Party, in 1991. Last November he played a key role in resolving the party’s debate over whether to join a new regional government with Sinn Fein, the political allies of the Irish Republican Army. Many Ulster Unionists had considered the IRA the enemy because it had campaigned for decades to abolish Northern Ireland as a Protestant-majority state within Britain. Cunningham strove to reassure his party about sharing power with Sinn Fein by obtaining a postdated resignation letter from Ulster Unionist party leader David Trimble that was to take effect if the IRA did not move to disarm, a ploy that helped Trimble narrowly win approval of the coalition government. Cunningham’s determination then helped persuade the British government to suspend the new Northern Ireland government when the IRA was accused of stalling on its pledge to disarm. The coalition government’s powers were restored in May only after the IRA finally agreed to international inspection of some of its arms. Cunningham was the head of a family stock brokerage, Cunningham Coates, until his retirement last year. He was killed in a two-car collision Wednesday outside Belfast.