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 26 November2003. 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.
On the unionist side, the Democratic Unionist Party gained ten seats 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 only lost one seat.
(Shortly after the election three Ulster Unionist MLAs, Jeffrey Donaldson, Nora Beare and Arlene Foster, changed parties to join the Democratic Unionists.)
The biggest surprise of the election came in West Tyrone with the election of the independent Dr. Kieran Deeney, campaigning on the single issue of hospital provision in Omagh.
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.
On 2§ November 2003, for the first time since 1975, a regional level election was held on the same boundaries and with the same seat distribution as its predecessor.
Upper Bann 2 UUP, 2 DUP, 1 SDLP, 1 SF This graph contrasts the 2003Assemblyelection result with the elections of the Assembly in 1973, the Forum in 1996, the Assembly in 1982, the Constitutional Convention in 1975 and the Assembly in 1973.
This was a very good election for the DUP, who were convincingly ahead of the UUP for the first time outside a European election, and for SF, who had their best result since the creation of NorthernIreland, and came second for the first time since 1921.
The second elections to the NorthernIrelandAssembly, which at the time of the elections had been suspended for just over a year, were held on Thursday, November 26, 2003.
The biggest surprise of the election came in West Tyrone with the election of the independent Dr. Kieran Deeney, campaigning on the single issue of hospital provision in Omagh.
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