Northern Ireland’s Electoral Office has said that the turnout in Thursday’s assembly election was higher than in last May’s contest when 55% of voters took part.



The Stormont assembly collapsed in acrimony earlier this year over a botched green energy scheme that cost taxpayers half a billion pounds.

The turnout increase at the second election in 10 months may be in response to voter anger at the way the largest political party in Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionists (DUP), mismanaged and then stubbornly defended the renewable health incentive scheme.



The first minister, Arlene Foster of the DUP, refused to stand down temporarily from her post to allow for a public inquiry to be held into the scheme. Martin McGuinness, the ailing Sinn Féin deputy first minister, resigned in January from his post, triggering the snap election. Under power sharing, any cross community coalition falls if one of the leading representatives of either unionists or nationalists resigns from the government in Belfast.

In some parts of Northern Ireland, such as Mid Ulster, there were reports that in parts of the rural constituency up to 80% of voters cast their ballot.



Polling stations closed at 10pm and the votes will be counted from 8am at eight centres across Northern Ireland.



The key electoral battle will be between the two women who lead the province’s two largest political parties – the DUP and Sinn Féin.

The DUP won 38 Stormont seats last year and was thus able to elect Foster as first minister, but it is expected to lose seats in an assembly which has been cut from 108 members last May to 90.

If Sinn Féin emerges as the largest political party, its new leader in Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill, could become first minister. The posts of first and deputy first minister are equal under the complex rules of power sharing between Catholics and Protestants, but if Sinn Féin seizes the first minister’s post, it would mark a major psychological blow against unionism.

In a small but symbolic sign of cross-community politics in action, the leader of the smaller nationalist party, the SDLP, confirmed that he gave a preference vote to Ulster Unionist candidate Julia Kee in the Derry constituency of Foyle.



Colum Eastwood said he used his single transferable vote to help the Ulster Unionist candidate. “I did vote for the UUP candidate. I voted right down the ballot paper. There were a few candidates that I did not vote for but I think they expected that,” Eastwood said.

During the campaign, the UUP leader and former television news presenter Mike Nesbitt said he would be giving a preference on the ballot paper to the SDLP because the two parties had worked well on the opposition benches of the last parliament.

If and when a new cross-community coalition is formed, the parties in the devolved government will have to tackle the greatest political challenge the nation has faced since the Troubles ended: the impact of Brexit on the island of Ireland, and in particular the future of Northern Ireland’s border with the Irish Republic.

The next ballot had been due to take place in May 2021 after the poll last May.

All the main Stormont parties reduced th number of candidates they fielded, in line with the reduction in assembly seats: the largest party, the DUP, fielded 38 (six fewer than last year); Sinn Féin had 34 (down five); UUP had 24 (two fewer); SDLP had 21 (down three); and the Alliance party had 21 (down two).