Northern Ireland Assembly Election, 2022

[YL]

If SF finish first and demand to be first minister what would the unionists parties do? Can that trigger violence? Direct rule is now off the cards with the 2007 agreement right?

The rules are weirdly worded: they say that the largest party of the largest designation (i.e. Unionist, Nationalist, Other) gets the First Minister position but then later say that if the largest party overall isn't part of the largest designation the largest party overall gets the First Minister instead.  So SF get the First Minister position if they are the largest party, even if Unionists are still the largest designation.  In that scenario the largest Unionist party get the Deputy First Minister, even if Alliance are the second largest party.

[YL]

If SF finish first and demand to be first minister what would the unionists parties do? Can that trigger violence? Direct rule is now off the cards with the 2007 agreement right?

The rules are weirdly worded: they say that the largest party of the largest designation (i.e. Unionist, Nationalist, Other) gets the First Minister position but then later say that if the largest party overall isn't part of the largest designation the largest party overall gets the First Minister instead.  So SF get the First Minister position if they are the largest party, even if Unionists are still the largest designation.  In that scenario the largest Unionist party get the Deputy First Minister, even if Alliance are the second largest party.

Will the unionist play ball though? Why would they agree to work with SF instead of obstructionism? Especially with a SF PM in the republic is a viable possibility in the future

Very probably not.

[YL]

Some preliminary constituency by constituency thoughts, starting in Belfast and going roughly clockwise.  Numbers given are those from the last Assembly election; links are to Nicholas Whyte's Northern Ireland elections site which has the full details of all elections in NI.

Belfast North

2 SF, 2 DUP, 1 SDLP

An SF gain in the General Election, but one of those Nationalist seats could be vulnerable to Alliance, who weren't far off last time.

Belfast West

4 SF, 1 PBP

The SDLP might have a chance here if they stay in long enough to pick up transfers.  The PBP vote fell quite sharply last time and their seat doesn't look safe.  With only 5 seats I think a Unionist seat is unlikely.

Belfast South

1 DUP, 1 SDLP, 1 Alliance, 1 SF, 1 Green

The SDLP's storming performance in the General Election might suggest the chance of a gain, though it's clear there was a lot of tactical voting.  There might also be a chance of the UUP getting a seat back if they have a good election.  In either case it's the Green seat which looks most vulnerable.

Belfast East

2 Alliance, 2 DUP, 1 UUP

This looks quite likely to be a "no change".  Alliance would need to do quite a bit better than in the General Election to get a third seat.

North Down

2 DUP, 1 Alliance, 1 UUP, 1 Green

Alliance's General Election gain suggests a second seat might be on the cards here, but it's not clear where it would come from; three "Other" seats and only two Unionists would be a striking result if it happened, but the General Election results still give three Unionist quotas (counting the Conservative).  Alex Easton, elected as DUP and their 2019 Westminster candidate, has left the party, not suggesting a particularly happy DUP ship.

Strangford

3 DUP, 1 Alliance, 1 UUP

The third DUP seat looks vulnerable here: they were well short of three quotas last time.  Based on the General Election result Alliance might well get a second seat; alternatively the SDLP might finally win one or the UUP might get a second seat back.  Or if TUV are doing much better than in the past this would be one of the more likely breakthroughs.

South Down

2 SF, 2 SDLP, 1 DUP

Alliance did quite well last time and might have a chance, with the SDLP most vulnerable.  The DUP MLA, Jim Wells, has fallen out with the party and is now and Independent Unionist; there might be some ramifications of that as far as who gets the Unionist seat is concernced.

Lagan Valley

2 DUP, 1 UUP, 1 Alliance, 1 SDLP

An interesting constituency as discussed with three high profile DUP figures now Donaldson is moving from Westminster.  The SDLP seat must be vulnerable -- it was only won last time with some surprisingly favourable transfers -- but Alliance's General Election performance suggests that if it is lost it's probably going to a second Alliance candidate.

Upper Bann

2 DUP, 1 SF, 1 UUP, 1 SDLP

I suspect no change is most likely here; Alliance were some way off last time.  If they did challenge then I guess the second DUP seat would be most vulnerable, though the SDLP aren't safe either.

Newry & Armagh

3 SF, 1 DUP, 1 SDLP

This is likely to continue as 4 Nationalists and 1 Unionist, so the main question is whether the DUP seat might be vulnerable to the UUP in one of the latter's better areas.

Fermanagh & South Tyrone

3 SF, 1 DUP, 1 UUP

The total Nationalist vote remains a little ahead of the total Unionist vote, and "Other" parties remain weak, so 3 Nationalists and 2 Unionists remains the likely outcome.  I think the most likely change here is the SDLP taking the third SF seat back, but even that may not be very likely. 

West Tyrone

3 SF, 1 DUP, 1 SDLP

SF had a rather underwhelming result in the General Election and Alliance a surprisingly good one for west of the Bann.  If Alliance do enough on first preferences to stay in contention long enough to pick up some transfers they might have a chance, and this constituency has surprised before.

Mid Ulster

3 SF, 1 DUP, 1 SDLP

Usually the most boring constituency in Assembly elections; the situation is quite similar to that in West Tyrone, but with Alliance a bit further back and SF's third seat more secure.

Foyle

2 SF, 2 SDLP, 1 DUP

The SDLP obliterated SF in the General Election with a near 20% swing; there were no doubt some special circumstances there and a bit of tactical voting, but it does suggest that the SDLP will be looking for a gain here.  The Unionist seat is beginning to look a little vulnerable, with the Unionist total being well below a quota in the General Election; no doubt this was partly because of tactical voting, but the DUP seat wasn't that comfortable in the last Assembly election either.

East Londonderry

2 DUP, 1 SF, 1 SDLP, 1 Ind U

This is definitely an Alliance opportunity based on the General Election result.  I suspect the DUP are most vulnerable assuming Claire Sugden (Ind U) stands again.  However, she probably fishes in the same pool as Alliance to some extent, so she might make an Alliance gain less likely.

North Antrim

2 DUP, 1 SF, 1 TUV, 1 UUP

Alliance got nearly 15% in the General Election which would put them in contention here too, though it's not clear who might lose out and I suspect they might fall just short.  The SF seat could be a little vulnerable if SDLP transfers broke towards Alliance; otherwise it might be the UUP at most risk, though if things are really, really going wrong for the DUP their second seat could be at risk in the Paisley heartland.

East Antrim

2 DUP, 2 UUP, 1 Alliance

This is another possible Alliance gain, with 27% in the General Election and plenty of possible transfers from Nationalist parties unlikely to win a seat themselves.  The DUP have usually been way ahead of the UUP here in recent elections so the latter look most vulnerable.

South Antrim

2 DUP, 1 SF, 1 UUP, 1 Alliance

The second DUP seat could be vulnerable if they do particularly badly, but no other party looks particularly well placed to take it so I suspect no change is most likely here.

[YL]

LucidTalk poll:
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1484869473572167680

Compared with the 2017 election, the DUP are down 11 percentage points, SF actually down 3, UUP up 1, Alliance up 5, SDLP down 1, TUV up 9.

[YL]

Edwin Poots, briefly DUP leader, and one of the three high profile DUP figures in Lagan Valley (where there are unlikely to be three DUP seats) tried to get selected for South Down.

He failed.

[YL]

Yes, I'm rather sceptical that the TUV will do as well as their current polling in the end.  But note that if they did, then almost every constituency which currently has two or more DUP MLAs would see one of them looking vulnerable to the TUV, including Lagan Valley.

Meanwhile, theres' been more fun in the South Down DUP with the local chair backing Poots and saying he won't campaign for Diane Forsythe: Belfast Telegraph story

[YL]

TUV doing noticeably less well than in LucidTalk, though.  On those figures I think they'd be struggling to make a breakthrough outside of North Antrim.

[YL]

The DUP are co-opting Edwin Poots to the Belfast South seat left vacant by the death of Christopher Stalford.  On the face of it, this seems a bit odd, as Poots is of course already an MLA for Lagan Valley and so this just moves the vacancy, but of course this solves the three-high-profile-candidates-for-probably-only-two-seats problem the DUP had in Lagan Valley.

I'm not sure Poots's religious conservatism is the best fit for Belfast South even in DUP terms, but probably the seat is reasonably secure.

[YL]

Would I be right in thinking that the growth of the Alliance and decline of the DUP is in part caused by younger protestants not identifying with the Unionist parties as much as their parents did? Or is this off base?

The recent polls have read to me that the story is more of the DUP's decline than SF's growth, but I'd like to know what the situation is from actual people from NI

Indeed, Unionism has lost some votes at its moderate end to Alliance.  Some of this is to do with Brexit; it should be noted that North Down, perhaps the ultimate heartland of politically moderate Protestants, voted Remain in spite of having a very low Catholic population.  Meanwhile, the more hardline part of Unionism is deeply unhappy with the actual outcome, which explains some of the movement to the TUV.

The UUP might have hoped to benefit from the DUP's difficulties, but my impression is that the UUP really hasn't known what to do with itself since it lost its dominant position twenty years or so ago.  It tried being moderate (Nesbitt), it tried being more hardline than the DUP (Elliott) and it tried being Tories (Empey), none of which really worked.  And perhaps big-U Unionism just isn't what these people are looking for any more; I don't know how my moderate Protestant relatives would vote in a border poll, but they have Irish passports and I think they voted SDLP in the last General Election.  (You can guess which constituency!)

[YL]

Four constituencies have finished counting:

East Antrim: 2 DUP, 2 Alliance, 1 UUP, Alliance gain from UUP
South Antrim: 2 DUP, 1 UUP, 1 Alliance, 1 SF, no change
Lagan Valley: 2 DUP, 2 Alliance, 1 UUP, Alliance gain from SDLP
Newry & Armagh: 3 SF, 1 SDLP, 1 DUP, no change

My thoughts on how the rest are going:

Belfast North: 2 SF already elected.  There should be two Unionists, probably both DUP candidates, and either SDLP or Alliance, probably the latter.  That would be an Alliance gain from SDLP.

Belfast West: 1 SF already elected, and the other three should make it as well.  For the other seat, I suspect that whichever of PBP or SDLP is eliminated first will put the other ahead of the DUP.  PBP are ahead by enough to be favourites, but I'd watch the transfers here.  If PBP make it that would be no change.

Belfast South: 1 SF, 1 SDLP, 1 DUP already elected.  I don't see the Green catching either Alliance candidate, so they will both be elected, and this will be an Alliance gain from Green.

Belfast East: 1 Alliance, 1 DUP already elected.  One more of each and a UUP candidate look far enough ahead of everybody else to be safe.  That would be no change.

North Down: 1 Ind U (Easton), 1 Alliance already elected.  The transfers aren't there to get the Green ahead of either the UUP candidate or the second Alliance, and the Green transfers will presumably ensure the second Alliance candidate is elected together with one DUP and one UUP.  So this would be Ind U and Alliance gaining from DUP and Green.

Strangford: 1 Alliance, 2 DUP already elected.  Nesbitt (UUP) also looks safe enough.  Then the TUV candidate has 5866, the SDLP 3781 and the second Alliance candidate 3735.  There is, however, a small Alliance surplus to transfer which may well switch ther order of the last two and put him in position to receive SDLP transfers, which might well be enough to beat the TUV for the last spot.  I'd lean towards Alliance gain from DUP, but it's not clear yet.

South Down: 2 SF already elected.  There's clearly a Unionist seat and the DUP are going to get that, and the SDLP don't have enough votes to get both candidates in ahead of the Alliance candidate.  SF may have undernominated here.  Alliance gain from SDLP.

Upper Bann: 1 SF already elected.  The SDLP have lost their seat, but where is it going and are there going to be any other changes?  There does look to be enough for three Unionists to get in, but transfer leakage could be a problem and the Alliance candidate and the second SF candidate are both pretty close, especially assuming the first SF candidate's surplus behaves as expected.  Lean Alliance gain from SDLP, but there could be more happening here.

Fermanagh & South Tyrone: 1 SF already elected.  Both Unionist parties should have a seat here, and even with Alliance transfers I don't think the SDLP have much chance of getting ahead of the third SF candidate.  So no change.

West Tyrone: 1 SF already elected.  The other two and the DUP and SDLP candidates should be OK here.  No change.

Foyle: 1 SDLP, 1 SF already elected.  This looks like a question of which of the other SDLP candidates gets in and whether the UUP can overtake the DUP.  At less than 400 votes behind with lots of transfers to come, most of which would favour the UUP over the DUP if they bother to preference either, I think they can.  That would be UUP gain from DUP.

East Derry: 1 DUP already elected.  I think the others will probably be 1 SF, a second DUP, Ind U (Sugden) and SDLP, but there's a fair way to go and the SDLP in particular are a long way short of quota.  So lean no change.

Mid Ulster: 3 SF already elected.  DUP about to join them, and the SDLP look far enough ahead to be safe especially with Alliance and Aontú transfers to come.  No change.

North Antrim: 1 UUP, 1 SF already elected.  Alliance must have a decent chance here if the SDLP transfers mostly end up there, but they need to get ahead of the DUP's second candidate.  I'm going with Alliance gain from DUP, but could be wrong.

[YL]

What are the demographics of the Alliance candidates ? is it an even mix of 50-50 protestants and Catholics( do they still have any minority MLA's) ?

Does a unionist party or Sinn Fein ever include a token Protestant/Catholic as a MLA ?

The UUP candidate in Belfast South (who didn't win) is Catholic (or at least from a Catholic background).

A few years ago there was a Protestant councillor who joined Sinn Féin, but that was unusual.

[YL]

A few years ago there was a Protestant councillor who joined Sinn Féin, but that was unusual.

I was referring to Billy Leonard, who was actually briefly an MLA.  He was never actually elected under the SF label.

[YL]

Alliance gain from DUP confirmed in Strangford: their second Nick Mathison went 40 votes ahead of the SDLP on count 8, elimiating the latter, and then went ahead of the TUV on the SDLP transfers.  If the SDLP had done slightly better this would have given the TUV a seat if Alliance transfers had favours the SDLP a bit less than the other way round; such are the quirks of STV.

Belfast South has also completed and was confirmed as Alliance gain from Green, giving the former two seats there.

[YL]

Two more seats completed:

North Antrim Alliance gain from DUP, so one each for DUP, UUP, TUV, Alliance and SF.  Beautiful (both the constituency and the Alliance gain).

West Tyrone No change.

In Upper Bann, UUP leader Doug Beattie has held on.  The last seat looks close between Sinn Féin, who have a surplus to transfer, and Alliance, who may get a few Unionist transfers.

[YL]

Two more seats completed:

North Antrim Alliance gain from DUP, so one each for DUP, UUP, TUV, Alliance and SF.  Beautiful (both the constituency and the Alliance gain).

West Tyrone No change.

In Upper Bann, UUP leader Doug Beattie has held on.  The last seat looks close between Sinn Féin, who have a surplus to transfer, and Alliance, who may get a few Unionist transfers.

Alliance definitely gets the last seat in Upper Bann over SF. Alliance is up 500 votes over SF and the surplus to be allocated is from the UUP.

There's a Sinn Féin surplus as well, though it's originally from the SDLP and so may be less monolithically SF than SF surpluses often are.  The Belfast Telegraph's graphics are good for seeing which surpluses have been transferred and which haven't.
https://elections.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/ni-assembly-election-2022/upper-bann

EDIT: that surplus has now been transferred, and it wasn't that monolithic so Alliance have won the seat.

[YL]

More seats finished: Belfast East, Belfast West, Mid Ulster.  No surprises, PBP holding on fairly comfortably in Belfast West.

Belfast North, North Down and FST all look straightforward, with Alliance taking the SDLP seat in the first of those unless something very strange happens with Unionist transfers.

That leaves East Derry, where the SDLP look to have held on, being ahead of Alliance by 15 votes in the crucial count and now being in a position to take their transfers to beat Sinn Féin for the last seat, and Foyle, where the UUP are about 460 votes behind the DUP with reasonable numbers of transfers from Alliance to be counted (as well as some from PBP and Aontú, but they're more likely to go to the SDLP).

EDIT: just seen a point on Twitter that the SDLP have an outside chance of that Foyle seat too.  If transfers from Alliance, Aontú and PBP really come in for them then I suppose they do.

[YL]

That leaves East Derry, where the SDLP look to have held on, being ahead of Alliance by 15 votes in the crucial count and now being in a position to take their transfers to beat Sinn Féin for the last seat, and Foyle, where the UUP are about 460 votes behind the DUP with reasonable numbers of transfers from Alliance to be counted (as well as some from PBP and Aontú, but they're more likely to go to the SDLP).

EDIT: just seen a point on Twitter that the SDLP have an outside chance of that Foyle seat too.  If transfers from Alliance, Aontú and PBP really come in for them then I suppose they do.

But that last didn't happen: Aontú transfers were poor for the SDLP and their third candidate was eliminated.  They also helped the DUP a bit, so they're back to being nearly 400 ahead of the UUP; I think it's doubtful that SDLP and PBP transfers will help the UUP by that much, though there will be a decent number of them available.

Everywhere except Foyle has finished counting.  So the results will be
Sinn Féin 27
DUP 25 (or 24)
Alliance 17
UUP 9 (or 10)
SDLP 8
People Before Profit 1
TUV 1
Ind U (Easton, Sugden) 2

[YL]

Since NI Polls for Westminster are so rare, how does everyone think that the results of this election would reflect on the Westminster seats if there was an election today?

I'm not at all an expert, but I don't think it would show much change in the Westminster seats, except for possible Alliance gains in Belfast East and South. Although that would really come down to how tactically the parties voted in the Westminster elections (if at all), and with the successes of the Alliance party in recent years, and Brexit finished, the Alliance has less and less incentive to cooperate with other parties in future elections, and likewise for other parties cooperating with the Alliance. I also think these results show that Sinn Fein would have increased their hold over South Down, and perhaps even give the SDLP a run for their money in Foyle, even with the massive SDLP majority in 2019, though keeping in mind that Sinn Fein won the seat in 2017. Long story short, DUP losses to Alliance, SDLP losses to Sinn Fein and Alliance.

It certainly looks from these results as if Sinn Féin's problems in Derry which caused the huge SDLP win in Foyle in 2019 have mostly gone, so the Westminster seat there can be assumed to be in play again.

Belfast South depends on the personal popularity of the MP and whether the spectre of the DUP taking the seat again on a split vote, as happened in 2017, is still strong enough to keep people who might otherwise vote Alliance tactically in the SDLP camp.  If Alliance had somehow got established there first I'm pretty sure it'd already be an Alliance seat.

[YL]

Anyway, 'fun' hypothetical for you all: with these election results, what sort of government would be formed in Northern Ireland was not in Permanent Special Measures and not allowed full democracy for very good reason?

You have to include either Sinn Féin or the DUP, as they have a majority between them.  Sinn Féin with Alliance and either the SDLP or the UUP would be the obvious choices, but both have problems.

I think the rules at the moment are too rigid; when there's a party refusing to join the executive the other parties ought to be able to get on and form one without them, especially if the resulting executive would still contain both Nationalist and Unionist representation.

[YL]

Donaldson isn't taking his seat for now and the DUP are co-opting former Belfast South MP Emma Little Pengelly to it.

What a farce.

[YL]

Can someone explain the Alliance's actual political postions on the issues beyond being neutral on reunification? where do they lie on economic and social issues ?

Are they at all similar to the Liberal Democrats ?

Similarish, but the context is very different.  Northern Ireland doesn't really do left-right politics and inevitably, given that their main distinctive feature is anti-sectarianism, they attract people with a range of views on other issues, including economics.  They are definitely socially liberal by Northern Irish standards, though.  

[YL]

It's obviously because much of their base there has gone to the TUV, but it is striking to see the DUP's share of Unionism so low in the Paisleyite heartland.

[YL]

It looks like this is going to be repeated in December because of the Assembly deadlock.