Northern Ireland Assembly election, 2017

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Northern Ireland Assembly election, 2017
NI flax V1.png
← 2016 2 March 2017 2021 →
All 90 seats to the Northern Ireland Assembly
  First party Second party Third party
  Arlene Foster Martin McGuiness Mike Nesbitt
Leader Arlene Foster Martin McGuinness[n 1] Mike Nesbitt
Party DUP Sinn Féin UUP
Leader since 17 December 2015 N/A[n 2] 31 March 2012
Leader's seat Fermanagh & South Tyrone Foyle Strangford
Last election 38 seats,[n 3] 29.2% 28 seats, 24% 16 seats, 12.6%
  Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party
  Colum Eastwood Naomi Long Steven Agnew
Leader Colum Eastwood Naomi Long Steven Agnew
Party SDLP Alliance Green (NI)
Leader since 14 November 2015 26 October 2016 10 January 2011
Leader's seat Foyle Belfast East North Down
Last election 12 seats, 12% 8 seats, 7% 2 seats, 2.7%
  Seventh party Eighth party
  No image.svg Jim Allister
Leader Collective leadership Jim Allister
Party People Before Profit TUV
Leader since N/A 7 December 2007
Leader's seat N/A North Antrim
Last election 2 seats, 2.0% 1 seat, 3.4%
First Minister and deputy First Minister before election

Arlene Foster (DUP) &
Martin McGuinness (SF)

 First Minister and deputy First Minister

TBD

The next Northern Ireland Assembly election is to be held on 2 March 2017 to elect members (MLAs) to the Northern Ireland Assembly following the resignation of deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness in protest over the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal. It will be the sixth election since the Assembly was re-established in 1998. It will be the first to elect 90 MLAs to the Assembly, a reduction from the previous 108.

Eight parties had MLAs in the fifth assembly: the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Sinn Féin, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, the Greens, People Before Profit (PBP), and Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV). There was also one Independent Unionist MLA.

Background

In May 2013, Theresa Villiers, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, announced the next Assembly election would be postponed to May 2016, and would be held at fixed intervals of five years thereafter.[1] Section 7 of the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014 specifies that elections will be held on the first Thursday in May on the fifth calendar year following that in which its predecessor was elected,[2] which would be 6 May 2021. However, there are several circumstances in which the Assembly can be dissolved before the date scheduled by virtue of section 31(1) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

Martin McGuinness (Sinn Féin), the deputy First Minister, resigned on 9 January 2017 in protest at the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal and other issues, such as the DUP's failure to support funding for inquests into killings during The Troubles and to end funding for an Irish language project. The First Minister, Arlene Foster (DUP), was in charge of the scheme in her previous ministerial position, but had refused to temporarily stand down as First Minister while an enquiry took place. McGuinness' resignation as deputy First Minister, under power sharing arrangements, means that Foster automatically loses office as First Minister. The DUP condemned McGuinness' resignation.

Sinn Féin had seven days, until 5 pm on 16 January 2017, in which to nominate a new deputy First Minister, but refused to do so in the Assembly plenary on 16 January.[3] As a result, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland James Brokenshire confirmed the same day that snap elections will be held on 2 March.[4][5][6]

Membership

According to the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, parties elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly designate themselves as belonging to the nationalist community or the unionist community, or 'Other'. Important votes require cross-community support. Currently no political party has MLAs from multiple communities. The designation of each party represented in the outgoing Assembly is given below:

Party MLAs elected in 2016 Hypothesised 2016 result
in smaller Assembly[7]		 Designation
DUP 38[n 4] 33 Unionist
Sinn Féin 28 23 Nationalist
UUP 16 11 Unionist
SDLP 12 11 Nationalist
Alliance 8 8 Other
Green (NI) 2 2 Other
People Before Profit 2 1 Other
TUV 1 1 Unionist
Independent 1 0 Unionist
Total 108 90

Seats

Following the Assembly Members (Reduction of Numbers) Act (Northern Ireland) 2016, the number of seats in the Assembly has been reduced from 108 to 90 at this election. This is done by reducing the number of candidates to be elected in each constituency from 6 to 5.[9][10]

Members not seeking re-election

Sinn Féin

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Sinn Féin's leader is Gerry Adams, but McGuinness is the party's leader in the Assembly
  2. ↑ McGuinness first became deputy First Minister in 8 May 2007
  3. ↑ Note that the last election was for an Assembly with 108 seats
  4. ↑ Jonathan Bell was suspended from the DUP in December 2016 as he gave a media interview without party permission over the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal.[8]

References

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  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ http://www.itv.com/news/utv/2016-12-18/jonathan-bell-suspended-from-dup/
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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