Northern Ireland: Candidates and additional parties

I've been able to map party coverage of the constituencies in terms of candidates. 

As you can see, the big 5 parties have full coverage, as do the Greens. These 6 parties are running candidates all across Northern Ireland and any voter, no matter where they live,

Next in terms of coverage is the TUV and the Conservatives, each running in 13 seats; however the TUV has 1 more candidate as they have two in North Antrim.

PBP is next with 7 (up from 3). The PUP is running 3 (down from 6), while UKIP is only running a single candidate (down from 13). There are also 22 Independents running.



The Workers Party is running 5 candidates. They are a communist party based in Ireland and are nationalist in nature, desiring a unification of Northern Ireland with Ireland. In the last election they took 1,565 votes with 4 candidates.


The Cross-Community Labour Alternative is running 4 candidates. They are a hard left party that attempts to appeal to both communities. Their vote, however, is concentrated in Unionist areas. In the last election they took 1,577 votes with 3 candidates.


CISTA, or the Citizens Independent Social Thought Alliance is a new party that uses the same organization as CISTA, or Cannabis is Safer than Alcohol. Both parties shared a Northern Ireland leader and most supporters. They are running 3 candidates, compared to the old CISTA party's 4. The old party took 2,510 votes in the last election.


For comparison, around 6,000 votes is the quota to elect a member, but it is always possible to gain votes on transfers due to the STV system used in Northern Ireland.

Tomorrow I will look at the various Independents running to a minimal degree to see patterns in their candidacy.