The Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, won a majority of seats in Northern Ireland's local government for the first time in Thursday's elections in the region. The final results were announced on Saturday.
Sinn Fein, which favors Northern Ireland's secession from the United Kingdom, won 30.9% of the vote (a 7.7 percentage point increase from 2019) and the number of seats won by its members rose from 106 to 144. Supporters of unification with Ireland thus have a majority in both local councils and the regional parliament. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which backs unity with the UK, retained its previous position with 122 seats (23.3% of the vote, up from 24.1% four years ago).
However, the Social Democratic and Labour Party and the Ulster Unionist Party lost about a third of their mandates.
In May 2022, Sinn Fein, won the region's parliamentary election, the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Ireland was partitioned into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland by an act of the parliament in 1921. In 1922, Southern Ireland became the Irish Free State, which in turn became the independent Republic of Ireland in 1949. Northern Ireland has remained part of the United Kingdom.