1982 Northern Ireland Assembly election

1982 Northern Ireland Assembly election

← 1975 20 October 1982 1996 →
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All 78 seats to the Northern Ireland Assembly 40 seats were needed for a majority
First party Second party Third party   UUP Leader James Molyneaux Ian Paisley John Hume Party UUP DUP SDLP Leader since September 1979 September 1971 November 1979 Leader's seat South Antrim North Antrim Londonderry Last election 33 seats, 38.1%[a] 12 seats, 14.8% 17 seats, 23.7% Seats won 26 21 14 Seat change 5[b] 9 3 Popular vote 188,277 145,528 118,891 Percentage 29.7% 23.0% 18.8% Swing 9.2%[b] 8.2% 4.9%   Fourth party Fifth party   APN Leader Oliver Napier Ruairí Ó Brádaigh Party Alliance Sinn Féin Leader since 1972 October 1970 Leader's seat Belfast East None Last election 8 seats, 9.8% Did not contest Seats won 10 5 Seat change 2 5 Popular vote 58,851 64,191 Percentage 9.3% 10.1% Swing 0.5% n/a
Chief Executive before election None Chief Executive after election None

Politics of Northern Ireland
Interim bodies
Northern Ireland Assembly (1973) Northern Ireland Executive (1974) Constitutional Convention (1975) Northern Ireland Assembly (1982) Northern Ireland Forum (1996)
Elections
1973 1975 1982 1996
Members
1973 1975 1982 1996
See also
Anglo-Irish Agreement New Ireland Forum 1986 Northern Ireland by-elections 1973 Northern Ireland border poll
Other countries
v t e

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.^[1] Although the Northern Ireland Assembly officially lasted until 1986 (and was seen as being a continuation of the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention of 1975) it met infrequently.

The

The consequence of this was that the elections were held using constituencies which varied greatly in size and electorate with different numbers of seats, ranging from Belfast West with an electorate of 57,726 and four members to South Antrim with an electorate of 131,734 and ten members. 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.^{[citation needed]}

On the Unionist side, the Assembly was welcomed, with some^[who?] hailing it nostalgically as 'a new Stormont'. Consequently, many Nationalists were suspicious of the new body. The Irish Independence Party, 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 was keen to test its electoral support and both it and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (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 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

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 was disqualified following a successful UUP election petition on the grounds that he was ineligible as he was a member of Seanad Éireann at the time.

On the Unionist side the UUP gained a clear lead over the DUP, while the United Ulster Unionist Party failed to make an impact and, as a result, folded two years later. In the centre 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.

Party		Votes	%	+/-	Seats	%	+/-
	UUP	188,277	29.7	-9.2[b]	26	33.8	-5[b]
	DUP	145,528	23.0	+8.2	21	27.3	+9
	SDLP	118,891	18.8	-4.9	14	18.2	-3
	Sinn Féin	64,191	10.1	—	5	6.5	+5
	Alliance	58,851	9.3	-0.5	10	13.0	+2
	Workers' Party	17,216	2.7	+0.5	0	—	0
	UPUP	14,916	2.3	-1.2	1	1.3	0
	UUUP	11,550	1.8		0	—	0
	Ind. Unionist	9,567	1.5	—	1	1.3	+1
	Independent SDLP	2,052	0.3	-0.3	0	—	0
	Independent	745	0.1	—	0	—	0
	Ecology	707	0.1	—	0	—	0
	Newtownabbey Labour	560	0.1	—	0	—	0
	People's Democracy	442	0.1	—	0	—	0
	Communist	415	0.1	—	0	—	0
	Ulster Liberal	65	0.0	—	0	—	0
	Peace	19	0.0	—	0	—	0
Total		633,120	100.0	0	78	100.0	0
Source: Ark

• Members of the 1982 Northern Ireland Assembly