Northern Ireland Assembly election, 2003

Northern Ireland Assembly election, 2003
Northern Ireland Assembly election, 2003

1998 ←
members
26 November 2003
→ 2007
members

All 108 seats to the Northern Ireland Assembly
55 seats needed for a majority
  First party Second party Third party
  Ian Paisley - (cropped).png Gerry Adams Easter Lily Badge.jpg David Trimble at Lisburn Seed Group benefit, Hillsborough Castle, Christmas 2007 crop.jpg
Leader Ian Paisley Gerry Adams David Trimble
Party Democratic Unionist Sinn Féin Ulster Unionist
Leader since 30 September 1971 13 November 1983 8 September 1995
Leader's seat North Antrim Belfast West Upper Bann
Last election 20 seats, 18.5% 18 seats, 16.7% 28 seats (21.3%)
Seats won 30 24 27
Seat change increase10 increase6 decrease1
Popular vote 177,944 162,758 156,931
Percentage 25.7% 23.5% 22.7%
Swing increase7.2% increase6.8% increase1.4%

  Fourth party Fifth party
  MarkDurkan.jpg
Leader Mark Durkan David Ford
Party SDLP Alliance
Leader since 10 November 2001 6 October 2001
Leader's seat Foyle South Antrim
Last election 24 seats (22.0%) 6 seats (5.6%)
Seats won 18 6
Seat change decrease6 steady 0
Popular vote 117,547 25,372
Percentage 17.0% 3.7%
Swing decrease5% decrease1.9%

Northern Ireland Assembly election 2003.png

Percentage of seats gained by each of the party.

First Minister before election

Suspended

Elected First Minister

Suspended

Northern Ireland

This article is part of the series:
Politics and government of
Northern Ireland



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The second elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, which at the time of the elections had been suspended for just over a year, were held on Wednesday 26 November 2003. Six members were elected by Single Transferable Vote from each of Northern Ireland's eighteen Westminster Parliamentary constituencies, giving a total of 108 MLAs, or Members of the Legislative Assembly. The elections were contested by 18 parties, and a number of independent candidates.

The elections were originally planned for May 2003,[1] but were delayed by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.[1]

Contents

Political Parties

On the unionist side, the Democratic Unionist Party gained ten seats, primarily at the expense of smaller Unionist parties, to become the largest party both in seats and votes. Despite slipping to third place in first preference votes the Ulster Unionist Party actually increased their vote slightly and had a net loss of only one seat. Shortly after the election three Ulster Unionist MLAs, Jeffrey Donaldson, Nora Beare and Arlene Foster, defected to the Democratic Unionists.

On the nationalist side, Sinn Féin saw a big increase in their vote, gaining six seats at the net expense of the Social Democratic and Labour Party.

The minor parties all saw a significant fall in their support. The Alliance Party managed to hold all six of its seats despite their vote almost halving, the Women's Coalition, United Unionist Coalition and Northern Ireland Unionist Party were all wiped out, and the Progressive Unionist Party and UK Unionist Party had just one seat each.

The biggest surprise of the election came in West Tyrone with the election of the independent Dr. Kieran Deeny, campaigning on the single issue of hospital provision in Omagh.

Note

Several sitting MLAs stood under a different label to the one they had used in 1998. Some had failed to be selected by their parties to stand and so stood as independents, whilst others had changed parties during the course of the assembly. Most of these realignments occurred within the unionist parties, with several defections between existing parties and two new parties being formed - the United Unionist Coalition (formed by the three MLAs elected as independent unionists, though one later joined the Democratic Unionist Party) and the Northern Ireland Unionist Party (formed by four of the five MLAs elected as the UK Unionist Party, though one later left them, joined the Democratic Unionists for a period but contested the election as an independent unionist). Neither the United Unionist Assembly Party nor the Northern Ireland Unionists won any seats in the 2003 election.

Results

Northernirelandassembly asof Jun 2003.PNG

Party Leader Seats +/- % of seats Number % of vote
Democratic Unionist Ian Paisley 30 +10 27.8 177,944 25.7
Sinn Féin Gerry Adams 24 +6 22.2 162,758 23.5
Ulster Unionist David Trimble 27 -1 25 156,931 22.7
SDLP Mark Durkan 18 -6 16.7 117,547 17.0
Alliance David Ford 6 0 5.6 25,372 3.7
Independent N/A 1 +1 0.9 20,234 2.9
Progressive Unionist David Ervine 1 -1 0.9 8,032 1.2
NI Women's Coalition Monica McWilliams 0 -2 5,785 0.8
UK Unionist Robert McCartney 1 -4 0.9 5,700 0.8
United Unionist Council Denis Watson 0 N/A 2,705 0.4
Green (NI) John Barry 0 0 2,688 0.4
Socialist Environmental Goretti Horgan 0 N/A 2,394 0.4
Workers' Party Seán Garland 0 0 1,881 0.3
Conservative Michael Howard 0 0 1,604 0.2
NI Unionist Cedric Wilson 0 N/A 1,350 0.2
Socialist Party Peter Hadden 0 N/A 343 0.0
Rainbow Dream Ticket Rainbow George 0 N/A 124 0.0
Ulster Third Way David Kerr 0 N/A 16 0.0
 Total 108 0 100.0 692,028 100.0
All parties with over 1,000 votes shown.

Electorate: 1,097,526; Valid votes: 692,028; Turnout: 63.05%.

SOURCE: ARK website

Votes summary

Popular vote
DUP
  
25.6%
Sinn Féin
  
23.52%
Ulster Unionist
  
22.68%
SDLP
  
16.99%
Alliance
  
3.67%
Progressive Unionist
  
1.16%
United Kingdom Unionist
  
0.69%
Independent
  
3.75%
Other
  
1.94%

Seats summary

Parliamentary seats
DUP
  
27.78%
Sinn Féin
  
22.22%
Ulster Unionist
  
25%
SDLP
  
16.67%
Alliance
  
5.56%
Progressive Unionist
  
0.93%
United Kingdom Unionist
  
0.93%
Independent
  
0.93%

See also


References


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