The 2016 Northern Ireland Assembly election was held on Thursday, 5 May 2016. It was the fifth election to take place since the devolved assembly was established in 1998. 1,281,595 individuals were registered to vote in the election (representing an increase of 5.9% compared to the previous Assembly election). Turnout in the 2016 Assembly election was 703,744 (54.9%), a decline of less than one percentage point from the previous Assembly Election in 2011, but down 15 percentage points from the first election to the Assembly held in 1998. As in the 2007 and 2011 elections, the

Democratic Unionist Party The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is a Unionism in Ireland, unionist, Ulster loyalism, loyalist, British nationalist and national conservative political party in Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1971 during the Troubles by Ian Paisley, who ...

and

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( ; ; ) is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The History of Sinn Féin, original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffit ...

won the most seats, with the DUP winning 38 and Sinn Féin winning 28 of the available 108 seats. The

Ulster Unionist Party The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a Unionism in Ireland, unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded as the Ulster Unionist Council in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it l ...

won 16 seats, the

Social Democratic and Labour Party The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP; ) is a social democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has eight members in the Northern Ireland Assembly ( MLAs) and two members of Parliament (M ...

12 and the

Alliance An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or sovereign state, states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an a ...

8, while two seats were won by the Green Party and People Before Profit. The

Traditional Unionist Voice The Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. In common with all other Northern Irish unionist parties, the TUV's political programme has as its '' sine qua non'' the preservation of Northern Ireland's pl ...

and an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States * Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...

candidate each won one seat.

Change of date

Under the

Northern Ireland Act 1998 __NOTOC__ The Northern Ireland Act 1998 (c. 47) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which allowed Westminster to devolve power to Northern Ireland, after decades of direct rule. It renamed the New Northern Ireland Assembly, establi ...

, elections to the Assembly were originally for a four-year term; thus there would have been an election due in May 2015, four years after the 2011 election. Following the introduction of the UK Fixed Term Parliaments Act, this date would have clashed with the 2015 UK general election. The

Scottish Parliament The Scottish Parliament ( ; ) is the Devolution in the United Kingdom, devolved, unicameral legislature of Scotland. It is located in the Holyrood, Edinburgh, Holyrood area of Edinburgh, and is frequently referred to by the metonym 'Holyrood'. ...

and

Welsh Assembly The Senedd ( ; ), officially known as the Welsh Parliament in English and () in Welsh, is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Wales. A democratically elected body, Its role is to scrutinise the Welsh Government and legislate on devolve ...

elections were postponed for a year to 2016 to avoid this clash. In May 2013,

Theresa Villiers Dame Theresa Anne Villiers (born 5 March 1968) is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Chipping Barnet (UK Parliament constituency), Chipping Barnet from 2005 United Kingdom ...

Secretary of State for Northern Ireland The secretary of state for Northern Ireland (; ), also referred to as Northern Ireland Secretary or SoSNI, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the Northern Ireland Office. The offi ...

, announced the next Assembly election would be postponed to May 2016, and would be held at fixed intervals of five years thereafter. 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 (rather than fourth, as previously) calendar year following that in which its predecessor was elected.

End of dual mandate

The Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014 also ends the practice of

dual mandate A dual mandate occurs when an official serves in or holds multiple public positions simultaneously. This practice is sometimes known as double jobbing in Britain, double-dipping in the United States, and ''cumul des mandats'' in France. Thus, if ...

, prohibiting someone being elected to the assembly who is also a member of the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

Dáil Éireann Dáil Éireann ( ; , ) is the lower house and principal chamber of the Oireachtas, which also includes the president of Ireland and a senate called Seanad Éireann.Article 15.1.2° of the Constitution of Ireland reads: "The Oireachtas shall co ...

. At the time the Act was passed, there were three such dual-members: the DUP's Sammy Wilson ( MP for East Antrim and MLA for East Antrim) and Gregory Campbell ( MP for East Londonderry and MLA for East Londonderry) and the SDLP's Alasdair McDonnell ( MP for Belfast South and MLA for Belfast South). Wilson and McDonnell resigned from the Assembly after being re-elected to the House of Commons in the 2015 election. Campbell, who was also re-elected as an MP, is retiring from the Assembly at this election.

Earlier dissolution

There are several circumstances in which the Assembly could be dissolved before the date scheduled by virtue of section 31(1) of the

Dissolution motion

Under section 32 of the 1998 Act, the Assembly can be dissolved if a resolution to such an effect is passed by the Assembly, with support of a two-thirds majority or more members.

Failure to elect the First or deputy First Ministers

The Act provides that if the Assembly fails to elect either the First Minister or deputy First Minister within six weeks, an election is called. Since the enactment of the Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006, the First Minister has been nominated by the largest party of the largest community designation, and the deputy First Minister has been nominated by the largest party in the second largest community designation ("Nationalist", "Unionist" or "Other").

New Executive Departments

It was proposed that after the May 2016 Election there be a reduction in the number of ministries and departments. The amendments were: * The Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister is renamed the Executive Office * The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is renamed the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs * The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment is renamed the

Department for the Economy The Department for the Economy (DfE, ) is a devolved Northern Ireland government department in the Northern Ireland Executive. The minister with overall responsibility for the department is the Minister for the Economy. DfE was renamed in 2 ...

* The Department of Finance and Personnel is renamed the Department of Finance * The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety is renamed the Department of Health * The Department for Regional Development is renamed the Department for Infrastructure * The Department for Social Development is renamed the

Department for Communities The Department for Communities (DfC, Irish Language, Irish: ''An Roinn Pobal''; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster Scots: ''Depairtment fur Commonities'') is a devolved Northern Ireland government department in the Northern Ireland Executive. The m ...

* The Department of Justice remains unchanged

Department of Justice (Northern Ireland) The Department of Justice (Irish language, Irish: ''An Roinn Dlí agus Cirt'', Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ''Männystrie o tha Laa'') is a government department in the Northern Ireland Executive, which was established on 12 April 2010 ...

* The Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure is dissolved * The Department of the Environment is dissolved * The Department for Employment and Learning is dissolved ° The Department of Education remains the same.

Candidates

Nominations opened on 30 March 2016 for the assembly election. A full list of candidates is available. The table below lists all of the nominated candidates.

Members not seeking re-election

Alliance

* Judith Cochrane ( Belfast East) * Anna Lo ( Belfast South) * Kieran McCarthy (

Strangford Strangford (from Old Norse ''Strangr fjörðr'', meaning "strong sea-inlet") is a small village at the mouth of Strangford Lough, on the Lecale peninsula in County Down, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 475 at the 2001 census. On th ...

)

DUP

* Gregory Campbell ( East Londonderry) * Stephen Moutray ( Upper Bann) * Peter Robinson ( Belfast East)

NI21

* Basil McCrea ( Lagan Valley)

SDLP

* Dominic Bradley ( Newry and Armagh) * John Dallat ( East Londonderry) * Alban Maginness ( Belfast North)

Sinn Féin

* Bronwyn McGahan ( Fermanagh and South Tyrone) * Mitchel McLaughlin ( South Antrim)

UUP

* Leslie Cree ( North Down) * Sam Gardiner ( Upper Bann) * Michael McGimpsey ( Belfast South)

UKIP

* David McNarry (

)

Results

The 2016 election was held using STV and 18 multi-seat districts, each electing 6 members.

Distribution of seats by constituency

Party affiliation of the six Assembly members returned by each constituency. The first column indicates the party of the Member of the

(MP) returned by the corresponding parliamentary constituency in the general election of 7 May 2015 (under the "

first past the post First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...

" method). (The constituencies are arranged here in rough geographical order around

Lough Neagh Lough Neagh ( ; ) is a freshwater lake in Northern Ireland and is the largest lake on the island of Ireland and in the British Isles. It has a surface area of and is about long and wide. According to Northern Ireland Water, it supplies 4 ...

from Antrim to Londonderry. To see them in alphabetical order, click the small square icon after "Constituency"; to restore this geographical order, click the icon after "No." at the left.) * Three of the four independents elected in 1998 ran as

Independent Unionist Independent Unionist is a label sometimes used by candidates in British elections to indicate their support for British unionism. It is most popularly associated with candidates in elections for the Parliament of Northern Ireland. Such candi ...

s * NIWC =

Northern Ireland Women's Coalition The Northern Ireland Women's Coalition (NIWC) was a minor cross-community political party in Northern Ireland from 1996 to 2006. The NIWC was founded by Catholic academic Monica McWilliams and Protestant social worker Pearl Sagar to contest ele ...

; Prog. U. = Progressive Unionist Party; TUV =

; UKUP = United Kingdom Unionist Party

Share of first-preference votes

Percentage of each constituency's first-preference votes. Four highest percentages in each constituency shaded; absolute majorities underlined. The constituencies are arranged in the geographic order described for the table above; click the icon next to "Constituency" to see them in alphabetical order. *[The totals given here are the sum of all valid ballots cast in each constituency, and the percentages are based on such totals. The turnout percentages in the last column, however, are based upon all ballots cast, which also include anything from twenty to a thousand invalid ballots in each constituency. The total valid ballots' percentage of the eligible electorate can correspondingly differ by 0.1% to 2% from the turnout percentage.] *

vote in 1998 (2.8%) included in the Independent column (not "others"). TUV =

Incumbents defeated

Sinn Féin

* Rosie McCorley — Belfast West * Maeve McLaughlin — Foyle * Cathal Ó hOisín — East Londonderry * Phil Flanagan — Fermanagh and South Tyrone

Democratic Unionist Party

* Jonathan Craig — Lagan Valley * Ian McCrea — Mid Ulster * David McIlveen — North Antrim

Ulster Unionist Party

* Alastair Patterson — Fermanagh and South Tyrone * Adrian Cochrane-Watson - South Antrim

Social Democratic and Labour Party

* Dolores Kelly — Upper Bann * Gerard Diver — Foyle * Karen McKevitt — South Down (stood in Newry and Armagh) * Fearghal McKinney — Belfast South * Seán Rogers — South Down

Independent

* John McCallister — South Down

Opinion Polling

Graphical summary

Footnotes

References

Manifestos

''Manifesto 2016''
Alliance
''Our Plan for Northern Ireland''
Democratic Unionist Party
''A Zero Waste Strategy for Northern Ireland''
Green Party Northern Ireland
''Better With Sinn Féin''
Sinn Féin
''Build a Better Future''
Social Democratic and Labour Party
''Straight Talking Principled Politics''
Traditional Unionist Voice
''Northern Ireland Assembly Manifesto 2016''
Democratic Unionist Party
''It's Time For Real Change''
UK Independence Party
''Standing Against Austerity''
Workers' Party {{Northern Ireland Assembly

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

2016 elections in the United Kingdom May 2016 in the United Kingdom 2016 elections in Northern Ireland