2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election

2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election

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All 90 seats to the Northern Ireland Assembly
Turnout	63.61% (1.2%)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Michelle O'Neill[n 1] Jeffrey Donaldson Naomi Long Party Sinn Féin DUP Alliance Leader since 23 January 2017[n 2] 30 June 2021 26 October 2016 Leader's seat Mid Ulster Lagan Valley (resigned)[a] Belfast East Last election 27 seats, 27.9% 28 seats, 28.1% 8 seats, 9.1% Seats won 27 25 17 Seat change 3 9 Popular vote 250,388 184,002 116,681 Percentage 29.0% 21.3% 13.5% Swing 1.1% 6.7% 4.5%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Doug Beattie Colum Eastwood Jim Allister Party Ulster Unionist SDLP TUV Leader since 17 May 2021 14 November 2015 7 December 2007 Leader's seat Upper Bann Did not stand[b] North Antrim Last election 10 seats, 12.9% 12 seats, 11.9% 1 seat, 2.6% Seats won 9 8 1 Seat change 1 4 Popular vote 96,390 78,237 65,788 Percentage 11.2% 9.1% 7.6% Swing 1.7% 2.9% 5.0%   Seventh party   Leader Eamonn McCann[n 3] Party People Before Profit Leader since N/A Leader's seat Did not stand Last election 1 seat, 1.8% Seats won 1 Seat change Popular vote 9,798 Percentage 1.1% Swing 0.6%
First Minister and deputy First Minister before election vacant positions First Minister and deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill (SF) & Emma Little-Pengelly (DUP)

The 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election was held on 5 May 2022. It elected 90 members to the Northern Ireland Assembly. It was the seventh assembly election since the establishment of the assembly in 1998. The election was held three months after the Northern Ireland Executive collapsed due to the resignation of the First Minister, Paul Givan of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), in protest against the Northern Ireland Protocol.^[2]

In the sixth assembly, elected in 2017, eight parties had Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs): the DUP, latterly led by Jeffrey Donaldson; Sinn Féin, led by Michelle O'Neill; the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), latterly led by Doug Beattie; the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), led by Colum Eastwood; Alliance, led by Naomi Long; the Greens, led by Clare Bailey; People Before Profit (PBP), which has a collective leadership; and the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), led by Jim Allister.

Sinn Féin became the largest party, marking the first time an Irish nationalist/republican party won the most seats in an assembly election in Northern Ireland, and has the right to nominate Northern Ireland's first nationalist First Minister. The DUP's vote share dropped almost 7% and it lost three seats; despite this, unionists won two more seats than nationalists—37 seats to 35—and a marginally higher share of the vote.^[3] Alliance made large gains, as the only party to gain seats at the election, overtaking the UUP and the SDLP to become the third-largest party in the Assembly. The Greens lost both seats they held before the election and were unrepresented in the Assembly for the first time since 2003.^[4][5]

As Northern Ireland's government is based on power-sharing, the DUP (the largest unionist party) was required to nominate a deputy First Minister for the Executive to be formed and the Assembly to conduct business; however, they refused to do so due to their opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol and post-Brexit trading arrangements.^[6] It wasn't until 31 January 2024 that the DUP and UK Government announced a deal had been struck to revive the Executive,^[7] and on 3 February 2024 the Assembly swore in Sinn Fein First Minister Michelle O'Neill and DUP deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly.^[8]

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