The 1982 Northern Ireland Assembly elections were held on 20 October 1982 in an attempt to re-establish devolution and power-sharing in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. North ...

. Although the

Northern Ireland Assembly sco-ulster, Norlin Airlan Assemblie , legislature = Seventh Assembly , coa_pic = File:NI_Assembly.svg , coa_res = 250px , house_type = Unicameral , house1 = , leader1_type = ...

officially lasted until 1986 (and was seen as being a continuation of the

Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention (NICC) was an elected body set up in 1975 by the United Kingdom Labour government of Harold Wilson as an attempt to deal with constitutional issues surrounding the status of Northern Ireland. Fo ...

of 1975) it met infrequently and achieved very little.

Electoral controversy

The

electoral system An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections m ...

proved to be hugely controversial. While there was general acceptance that the elections should take part using the

Single Transferable Vote Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate p ...

system, the decision to use the same twelve constituency boundaries used in the 1973 Assembly election rather than the new seventeen constituency boundaries which were later adopted in the

1983 general election The following elections occurred in the year 1983. Africa * 1983 Cameroonian parliamentary election * 1983 Equatorial Guinean legislative election * 1983 Kenyan general election * 1983 Malagasy parliamentary election * 1983 Malawian general e ...

was heavily criticised. The problem was that the

Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland The boundary commissions in the United Kingdom are non-departmental public bodies responsible for determining the boundaries of constituencies for elections to the House of Commons. There are four boundary commissions: * Boundary Commission for E ...

's Final Recommendations, which recommended that all future Assembly elections should be held using seventeen constituencies each electing five members, had not yet been approved by

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. ...

and therefore remained, technically, provisional recommendations. The consequence of this was that the elections were held using constituencies which varied greatly in size and electorate, ranging from Belfast West with an electorate of 57,726 to South Antrim with an electorate of 131,734. In the latter constituency this resulted in huge administrative problems with a record 27 candidates standing necessitating 23 counts over 36 hours with the count not completed until two days after the election. A further result of the disparity in electorates was that the number of members returned for each constituency varied widely, from four members in Belfast West to ten members in South Antrim.

Response of political parties

On the Unionist side, the Assembly was welcomed, with some hailing it nostalgically as 'a new Stormont'. Consequently, many

Nationalists Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Th ...

were suspicious of the new body. The

Irish Independence Party The Irish Independence Party (IIP) was a nationalist political party in Northern Ireland, founded in October 1977 p. 135. by Frank McManus (former Unity MP for Fermanagh & South Tyrone between 1970 and 1974) and Fergus McAteer (son of Eddie M ...

, which had moderate electoral success in the elections of the previous year, immediately announced that they would boycott the elections and called on other nationalists to follow suit. However

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

was keen to test its electoral support and both it and the

Social Democratic and Labour Party The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) ( ga, Páirtí Sóisialta Daonlathach an Lucht Oibre) is a social-democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has eight members in the Northern Ireland ...

(SDLP) announced that they would contest the elections but refuse to take any seats which they won. The smaller People's Democracy, which had won two council seats in an electoral alliance with the

Irish Republican Socialist Party The Irish Republican Socialist Party or IRSP ( ga, Páirtí Poblachtach Sóisialach na hÉireann) is a Marxist-Leninist and republican party in Ireland. It is often referred to as the "political wing" of the Irish National Liberation Army ( ...

the previous year, did likewise. Great interest centred on the performance of Sinn Féin, fighting its first full election and on the inter-Unionist rivalry between the

Democratic Unionist Party The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is a unionist, loyalist, and national conservative political party in Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1971 during the Troubles by Ian Paisley, who led the party for the next 37 years. Currently led by ...

(DUP) and the

Ulster Unionist Party The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule ...

(UUP). The former had pulled ahead in the European election of 1979 and the Local Council Elections of 1981 but had suffered a setback in the

1982 by-election __NOTOC__ Year 198 (CXCVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sergius and Gallus (or, less frequently, year 951 ''Ab u ...

which followed the murder of Robert Bradford.

Results

The results were seen as a triumph for the new electoral strategy of Sinn Féin which gained 5 seats and narrowly missed winning seats in Belfast North and Fermanagh and South Tyrone. The SDLP were disappointed with their 14 seats and one of these was subsequently lost in a by-election to the UUP as

Seamus Mallon Seamus Frederick Mallon (; 17 August 1936 – 24 January 2020) was an Irish politician who served as deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2001 and Deputy Leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) from 1979 to 20 ...

was disqualified following a successful UUP election petition on the grounds that he was ineligible as he was a member of

Seanad Éireann Seanad Éireann (, ; " Senate of Ireland") is the upper house of the Oireachtas (the Irish legislature), which also comprises the President of Ireland and Dáil Éireann (the lower house). It is commonly called the Seanad or Senate and its ...

at the time. On the Unionist side the UUP gained a clear lead over the DUP, while the

United Ulster Unionist Party The United Ulster Unionist Party (UUUP) was a unionist political party which existed in Northern Ireland between 1975 and 1984. It emerged from a division in the Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party in the late 1970s. Vanguard had traditional ...

failed to make an impact and, as a result, folded two years later. In the

centre Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricit ...

Alliance Party consolidated with 10 seats including unexpected wins in North and West Belfast. The Workers' Party failed to make a breakthrough despite respectable vote shares in places like North and West Belfast.

Votes summary

Seats summary

Northern Ireland Assembly election, 1982 Seats

References

Northern Ireland Assembly Elections 1982Full Counting Details
{{United Kingdom local elections, 1982 Northern Ireland Assembly (1982) Northern Ireland Assembly election

1982 Events January * January 1 – In Malaysia and Singapore, clocks are adjusted to the same time zone, UTC+8 (GMT+8.00). * January 13 – Air Florida Flight 90 crashes shortly after takeoff into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C., Un ...

Northern Ireland Assembly election 1982 elections in Northern Ireland