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The 1989 European elections

The 1989 election saw the first change in personnel among Northern Ireland's MEPs, as Jim Nicholson replaced John Taylor in the UUP's seat. He, John Hume and Ian Paisley were re-elected in 1994 and 1999.

For more information about the European Parliament and European elections see the 2009 European elections page.

The first preference votes cast in the European election in Northern Ireland on 15 June 1989 (see spreadsheet):

Democratic Unionist Party (Rev Ian Paisley MP MEP)
160,110 (29.9%)
Social Democratic and Labour Party (John Hume MP MEP)
136,335 (25.5%)
Ulster Unionist Party (Jim Nicholson)
118,785 (22.2%)
Sinn F�in (Danny Morrison)
48,914 (9.1%)
Alliance Party (John Alderdice)
27,905 (5.2%)
Conservative (Myrtle Boal)
25,789 (4.8%)
Green Party (Malcolm Samuel)
6,569 (1.2%)
Workers Party (Seamus Lynch)
5,590 (1.0%)
Labour Representation Group (Mark Langhammer)
3,540 (0.7%)
Labour '87 (Brian Caul)
1,274 (0.2%)
Turnout was 540,167 of the 1,106,852 electorate. 5,356 votes were invalid; 534,811 votes were valid. The quota was 133,703.
Transfers
The SDLP and DUP candidates (Hume and Paisley) were both declared elected on the first count as their votes exceeded the quota (133,703).

Paisley's surplus of 26,407 was then distributed to the next available preference as follows:

Past elections

graph

This graph shows the performances of the main parties in the five direct elections to the European parliament held so far (NB that the 2004 result in yellow is that of independent candidate John Gilliland, not the Alliance Party). You can find a summary of the results of the five most recent NI elections at all levels on this site's home page and on a different page is a summary of NI election results since 1973.

See also:

Other sites based at ARK: ORB (Online Research Bank) | CAIN (Conflict Archive on the INternet) | Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey

Your comments, please! Send an email to me at nicholas.whyte@gmail.com.

Nicholas Whyte, 18 April 2004


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Disclaimer:� Nicholas Whyte 1998-2004 Last Updated on Saturday, 30-May-2009 10:45