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NI Assembly Election, 7 March 2007
The long awaited elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly took place
on March 7, 2007. 18 women were elected out of a total of 108 seats,
the same number as elected in the 2003 Assembly election. Sinn Fein
with eight women MLAs had the most women elected. The SDLP has four
women MLAs, the DUP has three women MLAs, Alliance has two women MLAs
and the PUP has one woman MLA. There were no women elected for the UUP.
The list of successful female MLAs and elected women as a proportion
of party seats can be viewed here.
Several women MLAs elected in last Assembly election did not stand in
this election. Of those who did stand for election again, only one,
Diane Dodds of the DUP lost her seat. A list of former women MLAs for
NI can be found here.
Of those women who were re-elected, two thirds increased their share
of the vote. In South Down, Fermanagh and South Tyrone and Strangford
constituencies women took the highest share of the votes: Catriona Ruane
(SF) took 13.7% of the vote in South Down; Arlene Foster (DUP) took
15.4% of the vote in Fermanagh & South Tyrone; Iris Robinson (DUP)
took 16.4% of the vote in Strangford.
In the run-up to the election, the SDLP nominated the most women candidates
with 14 out of their 35 candidates being women. This also translated
into the largest percentage of women candidates (40%), followed closely
by the Alliance Party fielding 7 (39%) women from a total of 18. A full
breakdown and analysis of women candidates can be viewed here.
Despite the fact that a law enabling parties to use positive discrimination
to faciliate the nomination of women has been in place for several years,
it is not being adequately employed by parties in Northern Ireland,
with the consequent result that women are under-represented in the Assembly.
In fact there were less women candidates for this election than for
the 1998 and 2003 Assembly elections. The table belows compares Assembly
candidates by gender between the 2003 and 2007 elections.
Table 1: NI Assembly candidates by gender, 2003 and 2007
| Party |
Election |
Women |
Men |
Women % |
% change on 2003 |
| APNI |
2007
2003
|
7
8 |
11
13 |
39
38 |
+1 |
| DUP |
2007
2003
|
6
4 |
40
36 |
13
10 |
+3 |
| SDLP |
2007
2003
|
14
6 |
21
30 |
40
17 |
+23 |
| SF |
2007
2003
|
9
12 |
28
26 |
24
32 |
-8 |
| UUP |
2007
2003
|
1
4 |
37
39 |
3
9 |
-6 |
| Other |
2007
2003
|
10
15 |
73
64 |
12
19
|
-7 |
| Total |
2007
2003
|
47
49 |
210
207 |
18
19
|
-1 |
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