Stormont By-election Shaping up to be Highly Contentious

Pacman Crossley -
The By-Election will fill the Former UUP seat of North Antrim

Every month, an activity review is conducted in the Assembly of Northern Ireland. In March, one of the Ulster Unionist Party MLAs had failed to meet the voting requirement for that month. Typically, party leaders will have time to appoint a new MLA, but this time UUP Leader, TheWalkerLife, left the seat open seemingly accidentally. This means that the seat has to go to a by election.

Most by-elections in Northern Ireland are normally only contested by three to five parties. However, this time around ten candidates have filed to run in the by-election. Each of the four parties in the Assembly have a candidate except for the Alliance Party, which recently saw a drop in the polls all the way to fourth place behind the Irish Parliamentary Party. Alliance instead of standing, endorsed the Ecological Party, a party which allows members to self designate their constitutional status. Their candidate and leader, K4bi, is the former First Minister of Northern Ireland and is looking to make major gains in the by election.

The Labour Party's candidate is the Lord Houston, is a very prominent figure in British politics and fairly new to Northern Ireland's scene. They recently became the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party of Northern Ireland. They are known for being quite divisive and their campaign will make clear whether or not they continue that trend. The Labour Party recently managed to usurp the top spot in polling from the UUP. It is highly likely that they do very well in the by-election and it wouldn't be surprising if they managed to win.

The Church of Ireland in Antrim where much of the Campaign is taking place.

The IPP's candidate is Iamaredditaccount5. While he is also fairly new to Northern Irish politics, he has been incredibly active in debates and executive questions. Many other smaller parties in the Nationalist community are also running candidates, but it is highly likely that they will be eliminated early on due to their lack of solid polling numbers.

Recently, the SDLP reformed as a new Nationalist party in Northern Ireland. They have seen large gains in polling and have been climbing significantly up the ladder in terms of power. However, it is unlikely that they will have enough momentum to get very far in the STV election.

This by-election is shaping up to be highly contentious, and we likely won't know the winner until the final round of voting is counted. Election night is going to be tense and many parties are looking for gains. Whether or not they get them is up to the voters in Northern Ireland.