Northern Ireland Assembly election, 1998

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The first elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly were held on June 25, 1998. 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.

[edit] Results

The result was (first preference votes only):

Party		Leader	Seats	% of seats	Number	% of vote	Rank
	Ulster Unionist	David Trimble	28	25.9	172,225	21.28	2
	Social Democratic and Labour	John Hume	24	22.2	177,963	21.99	1
	Democratic Unionist	Ian Paisley	20	18.5	145,917	18.03	3
	Sinn Féin	Gerry Adams	18	16.7	142,858	17.65	4
	Alliance (NI)	John Alderdice	6	5.6	52,636	6.5	5
	UK Unionist	Robert McCartney	5	4.6	36,541	4.52	6
	Independent Unionist		3	2.8	24,339	3.0	7
	Progressive Unionist	Hugh Smyth	2	1.9	20,634	2.55	8
	NI Women's Coalition	Monica McWilliams	2	1.9	13,019	1.61	9
	Ulster Democratic	Gary McMichael	0		8,651	1.07	10
	Independent		0		5,392		*
	Labour (NI)	Malachi Curran	0		2,729	0.34	11
	Workers Party		0		1,989	0.25	12
	Conservative	William Hague	0		1,835	0.23	13
	Ulster Independence Movement	Hugh Ross	0		1,227	0.15	17 *
	Natural Law	James Anderson	0		832	0.10	18
	Socialist Party	Joe Higgins	0		789	0.10	19
	Green (NI)		0		710	0.09	20
Total			108	100.0	786,132	100.0

All parties with over 500 votes listed.

¹ Independent candidates were ranked 14, 15 and 16; other independents won fewer than 500 votes.

[edit] Details

Although the SDLP won the most first preference votes, the Ulster Unionists won the most seats in the Assembly. This has been attributed to several reasons, including:

Slightly differential turnouts across the province, with the result that in the more staunchly unionist east fewer votes were required to elect an MLA than in the SDLP's heartlands in the west.
The Ulster Unionists proved better at "vote balancing" whereby in the rounds of transfers their candidates were less likely to be eliminated earlier on.
The Ulster Unionists proved better at attracting transfers from other parties (and due to the vote balancing mentioned above, were more likely to be a position to benefit from this)