More of the Same? The Northern Ireland Assembly Election 2022
| Author | Clare Rice |
| DOI | 10.1177/20419058221091638 |
| Published date | 01 March 2022 |
| Date | 01 March 2022 |
APRIL 2022 • POLITICAL INSIGHT 37
After months of speculation,
the Northern Ireland Assembly
election was conrmed for
5 May 2022. This will be the rst
time that parties have faced the electorate
since the ‘New Decade, New Approach’
(NDNA) agreement was reached in January
2020, bringing an end to a three-year
institutional hiatus at Stormont. The political
circumstances in Northern Ireland ahead of
the election are very familiar. However, the
context for the impending election is unlike
anything that has been seen before.
First Minister resignation
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is
More of the Same?
The Northern Ireland
Assembly Election 2022
Clare Rice looks ahead to May’s Stormont elections and finds a divided
Northern Irish politics with limited prospect of an end to the ongoing
political crisis.
central to the current political climate in
Northern Ireland. The resignation of First
Minister, Paul Givan, on 3 February eectively
collapsed the power-sharing Executive and
set the wheels in motion towards the May
election. When the news broke, there was
a media furore at the timing of the move,
but it was little by way of surprise. Sir Jeery
Donaldson had been threatening to pull out
of Stormont for some time – in protest at the
Northern Ireland Protocol element of the UK-
EU Brexit agreement – to a point where the
DUP leader was facing ridicule for not acting.
Political Insight April 2022 BU.indd 37Political Insight April 2022 BU.indd 37 01/03/2022 10:2801/03/2022 10:28
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