Belfast, Northern Ireland ? Voters in Northern Ireland handed power to hard-line Protestants in a stunning setback for hopes of reviving a Catholic-Protestant government, the central objective of the peace accord for this British territory.

The Democratic Unionists — who dismiss the 1998 Good Friday accord as a package of concessions to the Irish Republican Army — seized control of the Protestant side of the Northern Ireland Assembly, election results showed Friday.

“If you surrender to gunmen and murderers, there is no hope for you,” declared victorious party leader Ian Paisley.

They’ll be sitting across the Assembly floor from a newly elected Roman Catholic majority from Sinn Fein, the IRA-linked party — with whom the Democratic Unionists say they won’t even talk, much less form a government.

“This was a sensational result for both parties and a real hammer-blow for power-sharing,” said Belfast political analyst Paul Arthur.

“There’s going to be no sitting Assembly for months at the very least,” he said. “We’re going to enter a probably tortuous period of re-negotiation or review — call it what you will — of the Good Friday agreement.”

Results after a two-day ballot count confirmed that the Democratic Unionists won 30 seats in the 108-member Assembly, up 10 from 1998. The long-dominant Ulster Unionists won 27, down one.