It’s a question that seemed purely academic after the party finished in its customary fifth place at the Assembly Election in 2017, taking eight seats. Brexit changed everything. By 2019 Alliance finished third in vote share at the General Election, just a matter of months after its leader Naomi Long took a seat in Brussels, winning the most votes of any candidate in any Northern Irish election ever (after transfers). And there was growth at the local level too: the party ended a 40-year run without a council seat in the western half of Northern Ireland by winning two.

It isn’t straightforward to map those election results onto Assembly elections because not every party stood everywhere and each party only stands one candidate for European Elections, usually their most well-known. However, between those results and opinion polls it’s clear that Alliance are on course to win upwards of 14 seats at the next Assembly Election. Some estimates even have Alliance winning as many as 17 or 18 seats. Perhaps a touch optimistic, but possible with kind transfers and a splintered opposition. 

That would normally be enough for overall third place, but couple the rise of Alliance with the collapse of the DUP and suddenly the possibility of Alliance coming second is very real. The two were tied on 16% in the most recent LucidTalk poll. Given that Alliance is an inherently transfer friendly party they could pip the DUP to second. 

It is also possible that the DUP’s continuing internal turmoil could drag them even further down, with Alliance and the UUP poised to benefit the most. It is possible for the UUP to finish second, or to squeeze ahead of the DUP but still finish behind Alliance. However for the rest of this article let’s assume that the DUP finishes third behind Alliance; that Alliance wins the second-most MLAs after the next election.

Naomi Long would become deputy First Minister, right? 

Wrong.

Perhaps Naomi Long can explain:

Because Alliance MLAs refuse to designate as either nationalist or unionist, they are effectively barred from taking the deputy First Minister position. The full text of the rule can be found here.

They could decide to designate as unionist in order to get the job. There is some precedent for this as some Alliance MLAs did it briefly in 2001 to vote in a government and protect the Good Friday Agreement. They undesignated themselves soon after and the party has said that its MLAs won’t do anything similar again.

For the sake of clarity: Alliance could take the First Minister role because there’s no requirement to designate as unionist or nationalist for that particular role. To do so, the party would have to finish first, which looks very unlikely right now considering Sinn Féin’s continuing strength. 

Why this rule?

Northern Ireland has a unique constitutional framework stemming from the Good Friday Agreement, amended at St Andrews in 2007. The rules are designed to guarantee rights for the two historic communities of Northern Ireland. Therefore, designating as one or the other has built-in advantages. The fact that people exist outside of that dichotomy wasn’t given too much thought because Alliance and the other ‘other’ parties combined rarely reached 10% of the vote.

The original Good Friday Agreement version of the First Minister/deputy First Minister rule stated that the largest party in the largest community would take the First Minister role and the largest party in the second largest community would take the deputy role. 

Under those conditions the DUP could finish third behind both Sinn Féin and Alliance but still hold on to the First Minister role provided that unionism had more seats than nationalism overall, which is very possible. In this scenario Sinn Féin would still take the deputy First Minister position. Now, as a result of the changes they negotiated, the DUP would only take the deputy role.

There’s no provision for appointing someone else as a compromise, such as when Clare Sugden became Justice Minister, unless they officially joined the largest unionist party.

Can it be changed?

The short answer is no, at least not for now.

As St Andrews demonstrates, the rules can be changed but any changes would need widespread agreement and then be passed at Westminster. There is no evidence of an appetite for institutional reform in advance of the next Assembly election, particularly as the DUP can still finish second.

Any changes after the election would need to be agreed upon on a cross-party basis. Roundtable talks including, at least, the five largest parties would be called for but an agreement to change the rules to facilitate an Alliance deputy First Minister at the expense of a unionst would be unacceptable to many in political unionism. If an agreement was reached, however, Westminster would likely rubber stamp it quite quickly. 

In theory Westminster could bypass Stormont and make the required changes to allow Alliance to take the role without the approval of parties on the ground, but it is very unlikely the Conservative Party would decide to do so. It would have little to gain from such a course of action and could damage trust in our governing institutions by doing so.

What does it mean?

The First and deputy First Minister roles are identical in every way other than in name, so unionism would be able to hold on to a top role even if Alliance came second. However, after two decades of insisting that the nationalist leader call themselves ‘deputy’ and acting as if the roles are different, it may be difficult for a unionist leader to accept being the deputy. It’s a problem largely of their own making, but a problem nonetheless.

If the DUP finishes second to Sinn Féin it has the potential to put the framework of our government at risk. Not because the system isn’t set up for it, but only if the DUP refuses to accept its own decline. If it finishes third it would have much more power than its numbers should guarantee, but that will be of small consolation for Edwin Poots. The DUP would face a choice of swallowing its pride and taking the deputy role, or refusing to nominate a candidate and collapsing the devolved institutions.

So, ultimately the future of self-government in Northern Ireland is likely to be decided by whether the DUP is willing to take the deputy First Minister mantle after the next election. 

And there’s nothing that Alliance can do about it –  other than try to oust Sinn Féin from top spot. This, of course, could lead to a scenario of a government without unionist participation. The logic of the Good Friday Agreement revolves around the concept of shared government between nationalists and unionists so this scenario would likely raise a whole series of potential problems.