On the
unionist side, the
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) became Northern Ireland's biggest party for the first time in any election, overtaking the
Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). They gained ten seats, primarily at the expense of smaller unionist parties, The UUP increased their vote slightly, despite slipping to third place in first preference votes, and won 27 seats, a net loss of one. Shortly after the election three Ulster Unionist MLAs,
Jeffrey Donaldson,
Norah Beare and
Arlene Foster, quit the party and later defected to the DUP. On the
nationalist side,
Sinn Féin saw a big increase in their vote, gaining six seats at the net expense of the
Social Democratic and Labour Party, for a total of 24 seats. The minor parties all saw a significant fall in their support. The
Alliance Party managed to hold all six of its seats despite their vote falling by a third, the
Women's Coalition,
United Unionist Coalition and
Northern Ireland Unionist Party were all wiped out, and the
Progressive Unionist Party and
UK Unionist Party won just one seat each. Neither the United Unionist Assembly Party nor the Northern Ireland Unionists won any seats. The biggest surprise of the election came in
West Tyrone with the election of the independent
Kieran Deeny, a doctor campaigning on the single issue of hospital provision in
Omagh.
Distribution of seats by constituency Party affiliation of the six Assembly members returned by each constituency. The first column indicates the party of the Member of the
House of Commons (MP) returned by the corresponding parliamentary constituency in the
2001 United Kingdom general election under the
first-past-the-post voting method. ==References==