Northern Ireland: All 108 seats filled as election count finishes

ALL 108 SEATS have now been filled in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections, with the political landscape not looking too different to how it was before.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) still hold the most seats, having finished the day on 38.

Sinn Féin are next with 28, followed by the Ulster Unionist Party with 16 seats.

The full breakdown of seats is:

• DUP 38
• Sinn Féin 28
• UUP 16
• SDLP 12
• AP 8
• PBP 2
• Green 2
• TUV 1
• Independent 1

The DUP hold the same number of seats as they held coming into the election, and Sinn Féin have dropped one seat.

The election result will pave the way for another power sharing executive at Stormont between the two parties, RTÉ reports.

The SDLP lost two seats but managed to have a number a younger representatives elected to replace retiring members of the party.

This will come as a consolation to the party’s new leader Colum Eastwood.

However, the BBC reports that Eastwood acknowledged that his party was left with “a lot of work to do”.

“We’ve had a rough couple of years, we’ve begun to change the face of the party and we’re going to build from here,” he said.

Victory

Arlene Foster, the leader of the DUP, will continue as first minister following the results.

Speaking to RTÉ News she said that the result was tremendous victory for the party.

Arlene Foster speaking at the Omagh count centre PA Wire / Press Association Images PA Wire / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

“Right across the country people have put their faith in the election platform that we put forward,” she said.

They have endorsed what we want to do and now we take that forward into the negotiations next week on the programme for government which we now have to put in place in the next 14 days. 

Meanwhile, Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly told the BBC that following the result, his party would have to look at the vote management from constituency to constituency.

“I think, to a great extent, that the vote management wasn’t that bad,” he said.

Kelly also said that he knew that his party would lose a seat to Gerry Carroll of People Before Profit in West Belfast.

“We agree with what a lot of what People Before Profit say,” he said.

There are some things we disagree with. We said we would work with them in the south and we will certainly work with them in the north.”

In total, there were 276 candidates standing in the elections across 18 constituencies.

Turnout was slightly down on the 2011 elections, taking into account increased population size.

Read: London elects its first Muslim mayor

Read: Northern Ireland’s election is happening today, but will there be any change?