Northern Ireland elections 2023: Alliance Party leader Naomi Long hopes to repeat 'record' win of last council election - when assembly was also suspended

The party hopes to catch rising support after the assembly election last year saw it surge to become the third biggest party in NI for the first time.The poll on 18 May will be the first electoral test for Northern Ireland's political parties since last May's assembly elections.There are 462 seats that will be contested in all of Northern Ireland's 11 councils.

• The DUP is running 152 candidates and defending 122 seats.

• Sinn Féin is running 162 candidates and defending 105 seats.

• The UUP is running 101 candidates and defending 75 seats.

• The SDLP is running 86 candidates and defending 59 seats.

• Alliance Party is running 110 candidates and defending 53 seats

• The TUV is running 46 candidates and defending six seats.

Several parties boasted of their ambitions for the poll.

The Alliance Party says it is running in 78 District Electoral Areas (DEA) out of 80, which it says is "the most of any party" - and possibly the most candidates it has fielded since the 1970s.

Sinn Fein and the TUV both say they are putting out the largest number of candidates they have ever stood, while the SDLP says it is running "more candidates and more areas" than it contested in 2019.

Looking ahead to the poll, Alliance Leader Naomi Long told the News Letter her party made record gains in the last council election - also when there was no functioning assembly.

"More people across Northern Ireland than ever before will have the opportunity to vote Alliance," she said of this poll.

Her councillors have used their time "to drive openness and transparency, fight political carve-ups and pursue equality across the board" , she said.

"The last Council Election was also held against the backdrop of no Assembly or Executive. People sent a message by electing more Alliance Councillors to more councils than ever before, a message which was heard loud and clear by the two biggest parties."

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson told members and supporters that the DUP is the largest party in six councils and Sinn Fein in five.

In republican dominated councils, he said in an internal party message, the Alliance Party and SDLP have aided the removal of any semblance of Britishness - and he therefore warned against the 'shredding' of the unionist vote, which would only see further erosion. He also noted that the core party message is that the DUP "has worked to get the foundations right" for Northern Ireland to succeed.

Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald told Monday's candidate launch in Belfast that the party is fielding "more candidates than ever before in a local council election...because we are ambitious that we can win”.

They hope to make a breakthrough on councils that have little or no Sinn Féin representation, she said, with a particular ambition of securing the first ever councillor on the Ards Peninsula.

As the largest party on the island, she said, this election presents "an enormous opportunity for Sinn Féin to become the largest party in local government for the first time ever in the north".