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[Brett-Butler]

When is the Northern Ireland Assembly Election?
It is on 5th May 2022, the same day as local elections across Great Britain.

Where is the Northern Ireland Assembly Election?
In Northern Ireland.

Who is elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly?
There will be 90 MLAs elected to the NI Assembly, 5 from each of the 18 electoral areas within Northern Ireland.

Northern Irish elections use a different system of voting than Westminster elections? Proportional Representation, right?

Correct.

When voting for each candidate, voters order their favourites by preferences, eg if you wanted the Silly Party to get your 1st preference, you put a "1" beside their name, if you want to give the Sensible Party your 2nd preference, you give them a "2", and so on or so forth. You don't need to do this beyond your first preference, but it is usual to do so later on.

So once all the 1st preference votes are counted, a quota is established, and any candidate that exceeds that quota is duly elected. Any additional votes beyond the quota will get redistributed to the other parties based on who people had down as their 2nd preferences.

If it becomes clear that the candidates on the least amount of votes cannot get above the quota even with vote transfers, then they are eliminated and their votes are redistributed to the 2nd/3rd preference votes.

This process repeats until all 5 candidates are elected in each constituency, so based on this, you could end up getting the 5th most 1st preference votes and still not get a seat if the 2nd preferences don't go your way.

What is the current make-up of the Assembly prior to being dissolved?

On the dissolution of the Assembly, the make-up of the Assembly was as follows -

Democratic Unionist Party - 26 seats
Sinn Féin - 27* (26 + Speaker)
SDLP - 12
Ulster Unionist Party - 10
Alliance Party - 7
Green Party NI - 2
Traditional Unionist Voice - 1
People Before Profit - 1
Independent - 1
Independent Unionist - 3

How are the parties designed?
Political parties in Northern Ireland (and independents) are required to designate as either Nationalist, Unionist or Other when entering the NI Assembly, as part of the Power Sharing structure of the NI Assembly. Nationalists believe that Northern Ireland should breakaway from the UK and become part of a United Ireland. Unionists believe that Northern Ireland should remain part of the United Kingdom, whilst those who take the "Other" designation don't take a position on the constitutional question or refuse to take one in the Assembly.

Who are the parties in each designation?


For Unionists, the two major parties are the DUP and the UUP. The DUP have been the major unionist party since the mid 00s, holding the title of First Minister since then, and have had the highest number of seats overall until this sitting. They are lead by Jeffery Donaldson & are viewed as being right-wing.

The other major unionist party is the UUP, lead by Doug Beattie. The UUP held the post of First Minister until being taken over electorally by the UUP in the mid 00s. They are seen as being centre-right, but under the leadership of Beattie they have tried to move leftwards on certain issues.

The other unionist party represented is the TUV. They broke away from the DUP in protest at them entering into power with Sinn Fein, and take a more hardline approach to unionism. They have only ever been represented in the Assembly by Jim Alastair, but their polling has improved in recent months as a result of the NI Protocol, at the expense of the DUP.

There is 1 further unionist in the Assembly, Claire Sugden, who was elected as an independent, and is standing again next year.

Two further unionist parties are standing, the Progressive Unionist Party (who had previously had representation in the Assembly, and have a few local councillors), and the Tories are standing in North Down.

Nationalists
Sinn Fein are the largest nationalist party in Northern Ireland, led by Michelle O'Neill in the north. They are viewed as the working class, strongly left-wing nationalist party. They have been the largest nationalist party in the north since the mid 00s, and have held the position of Deputy First Minister since then.

The SDLP are the 2nd largest nationalist party, led by Column Eastwood (who doesn't sit in the assembly as he is an MP). They had previously held the position of Deputy First Minister until the mid 00s, and have been in decline since then. They are viewed as a more moderate nationalist party.

Aontú, who have two councillors, are putting forward candidates in the Assembly elections for the first time. They are a party which broke away from Sinn Fein in 2018, and are viewed as an economically left-wing, socially conservative alternative to the main two nationalist parties.

Other smaller nationalist parties standing include the Workers' Party, the Cross-Community Labour Alternative (who briefly had 1 councillor last year), and the Irish Republican Socialist Party.

Others

The Alliance Party are the largest party that don't take a position on the constitutional question. They position themselves as the moderate alternative to nationalist/unionist politics, similar to their sister party, the Liberal Democrats. They made big gains at the NI local elections in 2019, and this year are predicted to make major gains.

The Green Party NI are the environment-centred party in the region, which is officially linked to the Green Party in the South, rather than to its counterparts in the rest of Great Britain. It currently has 2 MLAs, although it's not likely to improve on this this year.

People Before Profit (PBP) designates as "Other", but it is largely recognised as a nationalist party (it has representation in the Republic of Ireland). It a far-left, Trotskyist party, and stands out on the more left-leaning parties in NI in that it was in favour of Brexit, and it's anti-NATO stance and the previous statements of its members has given it the nickname "Putin Before People". It has one MLA in West Belfast, but previously had one in Foyle as well.

You have lovely eyes, Brett.
Why, thank you.

How many candidates are standing for each party?

Sinn Féin - 34
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) - 30.
Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) - 27
Alliance - 24
SDLP - 22
Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) - 19
Green Party - 18
People Before Profit - 12
Aontú - 12 candidates
Workers Party - 6
Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) - 3
The Irish Republican Socialist Party - 2
Socialist Party - 2
The Northern Ireland Conservatives, Cross Community Labour Alliance (CCLA), Resume NI and Heritage Party are all fielding one candidate each.
Independents - 24

Who forms the Executive after the election? Who will be the First/Deputy First Minister?

Under Power Sharing, The leader of the party with the most seats from the largest designation (Unionist/Nationalist/Other) becomes the First Minister, whilst the leader of the party with the most seats from the 2nd largest designation becomes the Deputy First Minister. Although in practice they are both de-facto co-leaders.

The Ministerial posts are then divided out amongst the largest parties based upon the d'Hondt method until all the posts have been taken. In the last election, this meant that the top 5 parties ended up with ministerial roles. Although it should be noted that a party that qualifies for a Ministerial post can decide not to take it and sit in opposition instead. This happened after the 2016 election, when the SDLP, UUP and Alliance Party chose not to take the seats they were entitled to, leaving just Sinn Fein and the DUP in the Executive.

Are you standing for election, Brett-Butler?
The Northern Ireland Assembly doesn't deserve me.


Hopefully the above should give a good entry-point to the topsy-turvy world of Northern Ireland elections. If there are any other questions or things you would like to know from my perspective feel free to ask. And I'm sure the other members of BJ from here can help as well.