Election Maps

As we rumble and grumble towards the election next month, it is a good time to look at Northern Irish electoral maps. These two charts tell a dramatic story. In 1997, out of Northern Ireland’s 18 constituencies, Unionists won 13 seats while Nationalists took 5. Of the 13 Unionist seats, 10 were claimed by the moderate Ulster Unionist Party. They are represented by light blue on this map and can be clearly seen to dominate.


Results of the 1997 general election. Ulster Unionist Party (blue), Social Democratic and Labour Party (light green), Democratic Unionist Party (orange), Sinn Féin (dark green) and the UK Unionist Party (purple). I got both maps from a website called Tallyroom.


2005 general election results in Northern Ireland using redistributed boundaries. Democratic Unionist Party (orange), Sinn Fein (dark green), Social Democratic and Labour Party (light green) and the Ulster Unionist Party (blue).

In 2001 that domination took a knock but they still remained the largest party. But in the next election they were almost wiped out. It appears that, despite the peace process, the voters used that election to retreat to intransigent corners. Hard-liners, Sinn Féin and the DUP, divided Northern Ireland between them. As we came to see in the following years, this was a dysfunctional arrangement. Stormont barely held together and at key moments required steering from London and Dublin. Sinn Féin refuse to take their Westminster seats, leaving a big chunk of Northern Ireland unrepresented in that forum. One may not think this is a problem, pointing out that Sinn Féin were elected and have the mandate to do so. However, as we can see from the 1997 map, there is a sizeable Unionist vote west of the Bann. MLAs have a responsibility to represent the people who don’t vote for them as well as those that do. More recently, media investigations have exposed corruption in the Robinson household. Peter Robinson has complained that the BBC is out to get him. Does he not realise that speaking like that makes him sound like Robert Mugabe? This lack of political acumen would be almost endearing were not so painfully embarrassing that he is First Minster.

It is fair to assume most of 2005’s voters were behind the peace process. Then why vote in that manner? Why not, in the spirit of the times, move towards a middle ground? It may have seemed that Northern Ireland was about to embark on a long period of wrangling and political horse-trading. So the voters took the opportunity to shore up their positions. The more you have, the more you have to trade and the less valuable stuff you have to give away in order to make gains. Such a cynical use of our votes would suggest that we have been paying attention, all these years, to our leader’s manoeuvrings and have been learning from them. Unfortunately, we were short of positive role-models. No one showed us it was possible to vote with bravery and imagination.

Next month we get another chance.