Northern Ireland Assembly election, 2003
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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 Thursday, November 26, 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. [2]
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[edit] 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.
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[edit] 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.
[edit] Results
| Party | Leader | Seats | +/- | Number | % of vote | Rank | |
| Democratic Unionist | Ian Paisley | 30 | +10 | 177,944 | 25.7 | 1 | |
| Sinn Féin | Gerry Adams | 24 | +6 | 162,758 | 23.5 | 2 | |
| Ulster Unionist | David Trimble | 27 | -1 | 156,931 | 22.7 | 3 | |
| Social Democratic & Labour | Mark Durkan | 18 | -6 | 117,547 | 17.0 | 4 | |
| Alliance (NI) | David Ford | 6 | 0 | 25,372 | 3.7 | 5 | |
| Progressive Unionist | David Ervine | 1 | -1 | 8,032 | 1.2 | 6 | |
| NI Women's Coalition | Monica McWilliams | 0 | -2 | 5,785 | 0.83 | 7 | |
| UK Unionist | Robert McCartney | 1 | -4 | 5,700 | 0.82 | 8 | |
| United Unionist Council | 0 | N/A | 2,705 | 0.4 | 9 | ||
| Green (NI) | 0 | 0 | 2,688 | 0.4 | 10 | ||
| Socialist Environmental | Goretti Horgan | 0 | N/A | 2,394 | 0.35 | 11 | |
| Workers Party | Seán Garland | 0 | 0 | 1,881 | 0.3 | 12 | |
| Conservative | Michael Howard | 0 | 0 | 1,604 | 0.2 | 13 | |
| NI Unionist | Cedric Wilson | 0 | N/A | 1,350 | 0.2 | 14 | |
| Total | 108 | 0 | 692028 | 100.0 | |||
- All parties with over 1,000 votes shown.
[edit] See also
| Elections in Northern Ireland |  |
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| Northern Ireland Assembly: 1998 | 2003 | 2007 | ||
| Northern Ireland House of Commons: 1921 | 1925 | 1929 | 1933 | 1938 | 1945 | 1949 | 1953 | 1958 | 1962 | 1965 | 1969 | ||
| Other elections: 1925 Senate | 1973 Assembly | 1975 Constitutional Convention | 1982 Assembly | 1996 Forum | ||
