2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election

2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election

← 2017 5 May 2022
← outgoing members
All 90 seats to the Northern Ireland Assembly
Leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson Michelle O'Neill[n 1] Colum Eastwood Party DUP Sinn Féin SDLP Last election 28 seats, 28.1% 27 seats, 27.9% 12 seats, 11.9%   Leader Doug Beattie Naomi Long Clare Bailey Party UUP Alliance Green (NI) Last election 10 seats, 12.9% 8 seats, 9.1% 2 seats, 2.3%   Leader Jim Allister Eamonn McCann[n 2] Party TUV People Before Profit Last election 1 seat, 2.6% 1 seat, 1.8%
Seats won by each party per constituency. Voters elect 5 assembly members from the 18 constituencies. Each constituency is shaded according to the combined first preference vote share of the largest party.
Incumbent First Minister and deputy First Minister Paul Givan (DUP) & Michelle O'Neill (SF)

The 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election is due to elect 90 members to the Northern Ireland Assembly. It will be the seventh assembly election since the assembly was established in 1998.

In the sixth assembly, elected in 2017, eight parties had Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs): the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), latterly led by Jeffrey Donaldson; Sinn Féin, led by Michelle O'Neill; the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), latterly led by Doug Beattie; the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), led by Colum Eastwood; Alliance, led by Naomi Long; the Greens, led by Clare Bailey; People Before Profit (PBP), who have a collective leadership; and Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), led by Jim Allister.

Background[]

In May 2013, Theresa Villiers, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, announced that the next Assembly election would be postponed to May 2016, and would be held at fixed intervals of five years thereafter.^[2] 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,^[3] which would be 5 May 2022. 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.

In 2016, the UK voted to leave the European Union, although Northern Ireland voted to remain.^[4] The process of withdrawal held particular uncertainty for Northern Ireland due to the potential for customs on the UK-Republic of Ireland border.^[5] Meanwhile, an early election was held to the Northern Ireland assembly in March 2017. After the election, Sinn Féin stated that it would not return to a power-sharing arrangement with the Democratic Unionist Party without significant changes in the party's approach, including Arlene Foster not becoming First Minister until an investigation into the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal was complete.^[6] Over the next few years, the deadline to form an executive was repeatedly extended as negotiations continued with no success.^{[7][8][9][10][11]}

On 18 April 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May called for a general election to be held on 8 June 2017.^[12] The Conservative Party lost its parliamentary majority and sought a confidence and supply agreement with the DUP to remain in government. The DUP and the Conservatives reached an agreement on 26 June.^[13]

In 2019, the UK experienced significant political turbulence over the question of how to proceed with Brexit. The European Parliament election in May 2019 saw the Alliance Party take the third MEP place from the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). DUP support for the Conservative government broke down with disagreements over the government's Brexit plans. The Conservative government sought a new election, held in December 2019, which they won with a large majority. In Northern Ireland, for the first time, traditional Irish nationalist parties won more seats than traditional unionist parties. The SDLP and Alliance returned to the House of Commons, while the DUP and Sinn Féin saw vote share declines of more than 5%.^[14]

A DUP/Sinn Féin executive was re-established on 10 January 2020, forestalling an immediate new election.^[15] By the end of February 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have spread to Northern Ireland.^[16]

On 28 April 2021, Arlene Foster announced that she would be resigning as DUP leader on 28 May and First Minister in June 2021 after more than 20 DUP MLAs and four DUP MPs signed a letter "...voicing no confidence in her leadership".^[17] Edwin Poots narrowly won the subsequent May 2021 DUP leadership election, but announced his resignation 21 days later.^[18] The runner-up in the election, Jeffrey Donaldson, stood unopposed in the June 2021 DUP leadership election and with no other candidates the party chose not to hold a ballot (some parties still do a leadership vote or ballot with one candidate with the other option to re-open nominations). Donaldson was ratified as the party's leader on 30 June 2021.^[19] Meanwhile, after Poots elected not to replace Foster as First Minister,^[20] Paul Givan took up the position on 17 June 2021.^[21]

Steve Aiken announced his resignation as leader of the UUP on 8 May 2021,^[22] with Doug Beattie taking up the post nine days later after standing unopposed.^[23]

On 9 September, the DUP threatened to pull out of Stormont's power-sharing government, triggering a snap election "within weeks", unless the Northern Ireland Protocol was scrapped. Donaldson warned: "I say not as a threat but as a matter of political reality that our political institutions will not survive a failure to resolve the problems the Protocol has created."^[24] The following week, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood accused the DUP of having a "petulant strop" and called for a new law to stop an early election. He told peers that the "delicate constitutional balance" in Northern Ireland was "too fragile for people to play games with".^[25]

On 15 January 2022, the UK government was accused of interfering in the election by reintroducing dual mandates, which had been abolished in 2016. This would enable MPs like Donaldson to have seats in Stormont as well as Westminster,^[26] but plans were withdrawn four days later.^[27]

On 3 February, Givan resigned as First Minister in protest over the Northern Ireland Protocol, which automatically resulted in the Deputy First Minister losing her role and the Northern Ireland Executive collapsing.^[28][29] Sinn Féin and the DUP both called for the election to be brought forward, but the UUP, SDLP and Alliance Party opposed the idea.^[30][31] Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis ruled out an early election,^[32] saying that the priority was to get the Assembly up and running again.^[33] Two weeks later, however, Lewis claimed there was "a real risk" that the Executive would not return after the election.^[34]

Candidates[]

This list is incomplete; you can help by . (January 2022)

* indicates an incumbent MLA

** indicates the candidate is the incumbent MLA for a different constituency

^ indicates a former MLA who was not a member at the dissolution of the 2017–22 Assembly

Leaders of parties represented in the assembly at dissolution are shown in bold text

Members not seeking re-election[]

Opinion polls[]

Graphical summary[]

Local regression of polls conducted

* (U): Unionist, (N): Nationalist, (O): Other

See also[]

• Next Irish general election
• Next United Kingdom general election

Footnotes[]

References[]