Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Mike Nesbitt announced his resignation at a news conference on Friday evening

The Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt has announced he is resigning.

The former broadcaster was elected to the Assembly in 2011 as an MLA for Strangford and became leader in March 2012 when Tom Elliott stood down after just 18 months in the job.

Although he retained his seat in the 2017 Assembly election, several of his party colleagues failed to retain theirs.

Mr Nesbitt said he would remain in the post until a successor has been found.

The Ulster Unionist Party's (UUP) poor election performance saw a number of party figures losing their seats.

Jo-Anne Dobson, Harold McKee, Jenny Palmer and former Stormont minister Danny Kennedy all failed to be returned.

Mike Nesbitt's career

He became a sports presenter at the BBC NI and also anchored the station's flagship Good Morning Ulster radio programme

He switched channels and joined UTV where he presented its evening news programme for 10 years, and during that time co-presented with his wife Lynda Bryans

In 2008, he was appointed a Victims' Commissioner, a role designed to promote the interests of victims of the Troubles

However, he left the commission when he joined the Ulster Unionists in 2010

At a news conference on Friday evening, the UUP leader said it would be the "height of hypocrisy" if he did not take "full responsibility" for his party's results.

However, he said he would remain as an MLA for Strangford.

'Performance'

Mr Nesbitt said the electorate had rejected his message.

"I am the one who suggested that in a normal society people would vote on performance and that the DUP and Sinn Féin did not earn another mandate," he said.

"I'm also the one who said this should be Northern Ireland's first post-sectarian election based on the economy and education and health and housing and that I had a different vision but the electorate disagreed.

Image caption Doug Beattie said he was saddened to hear of Mr Nesbitt's departure, describing him as a 'personal friend and colleague'

"They certainly did not give me a mandate big enough for me to feel justified in continuing in this position so I shall not."

Party colleague, Doug Beattie, who was re-elected as an MLA in Upper Bann said he was saddened to hear that Mr Nesbitt was standing down as he was a "personal friend and colleague".

Former party colleague John McCallister described it as an "honourable decision".

The Alliance Party leader Naomi Long said she was "quite shocked by how swiftly he had decided to depart the stage".

Image copyright Pacemaker Image caption Mr Nesbitt presented UTV's evening news programme for 10 years

In the May 2016 Assembly election, Mr Nesbitt said he was "stunned" when he topped the poll in Strangford.

The UUP secured 16 seats at Stormont last year - the same number as the 2011 election.

Opposition

He said the UUP's campaign had been neither a success, nor a failure.

Following the assembly elections in May 2016, Mr Nesbitt led the UUP into opposition at Stormont alongside the SDLP.

In February, Mr Nesbitt faced criticism after saying he intended to give the SDLP his second preference in the Assembly election.

Image caption Mr Nesbitt joked that he was reassured to know Danny Kennedy, sitting behind him, had been listening to his comments on the BBC's Sunday Politics programme

Ulster Unionists had wanted the election to be a referendum on how the Renewable Heat Incentive debacle was handled but instead the focus turned to his comments.

Senior party colleague, Danny Kennedy, who lost his seat as an MLA in Newry and Armagh, publically distanced himself from Mr Nesbitt in the aftermath of his remarks.

UUP councillor Carol Black resigned from the party as a result of his comments saying the party's "whole ethos" had been destroyed by Mr Nesbitt's voting intentions.

Mr Nesbitt defended his remarks and said he had received "very little criticism" while spending a lot of time time knocking doors in heavily unionist areas.</s>BELFAST (Sputnik) — Speaking in Belfast, Nesbitt said the early results, in which UUP failed to make gains, showed voters had not given him a mandate to continue as leader.

"It has been an absolute honor to have led the Ulster Unionist Party and a challenge like no other," Nesbitt stated. "My only regret is that the results seem to suggest this society is more polarised than ever rather than more united, which was my aspiration."

Northern Ireland’s complex system of government requires the assembly to be jointly led by a nationalist and unionist political parties or by either with a third party. Sinn Fein and the DUP have occupied the first minister and deputy first minister positions for a decade.

Sinn Fein was leading in early results on Friday night with the unionist parties facing the possibility of not having an assembly majority for the first time.</s>The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) secured 12 seats, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) won 10 seats, the Alliance Party – 8, the Greens got two seats and the People Before Profit and Traditional Unionist Voice each got one seat. One seat was secured by an independent unionist.

The turnout at the elections was almost 65 percent.

UUP leader Mike Nesbitt said he was going to resign after his party demonstrated poor results.</s>Mike Nesbitt was a former television anchorman who abandoned broadcasting for public service.

He was born in 1957 in Belfast. Before becoming a politician, he had a long and varied career in television, presenting the evening news programme on UTV for a decade.

In 2008, he was appointed as a Victims’ Commissioner for the Troubles, representing the needs of those injured during 30 years of conflict in the North.

Mr Nesbitt then joined the UUP in 2010 and was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2011 as a representative for the constituency of Strangford, south of Belfast.

A smooth and assured performer in debate, he was elected leader of the UUP in 2012, succeeding the more traditional Tom Elliott.

However, the party was in decline at the time and he struggled to reverse its position.

At the Westminster election in 2015, the UUP returned two MPs, despite Nesbitt’s calls for a unionist pact with the DUP.

By the following year he had joined forces with the nationalist SDLP in opposition to the DUP. He started promising a post-sectarian future for the North.

In last year’s Assembly election, he failed to shake the DUP’s dominance, as Arlene Foster took over leadership of the larger party.

He resigned as party leader on Friday while some of his embattled party colleagues fought for their political lives in the latest Assembly election.

However, he will remain as an MLA for Strangford.</s>Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has said the "perpetual unionist majority" at Stormont has been "demolished" following the result of the Northern Ireland Assembly election.

A jubilant Adams said it was a "watershed" moment after his party closed to within a solitary seat of the Democratic Unionist Party.

Having entered the election 10 seats ahead of Sinn Fein, the DUP's advantage was slashed to a solitary seat.

The DUP have 28 seats to Sinn Fein's 27. The nationalist SDLP got 12 seats with the Ulster Unionist Party. The UUP leader Mike Nesbitt resigned as a result of the poor campaign.

Adams said Sinn Fein's new leader in the north, Michelle O'Neill, will be holding talks with Prime Minister Theresa May and Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny about the impact of Brexit on Ireland north and south over the next few weeks.

Speaking outside the party's West Belfast office, Adams said Sinn Fein wants to quickly engage in a process with other party leaders to ensure powersharing in the region is restored.

But he again insisted that the party will not support DUP leader Arlene Foster as Northern Ireland's first minister until she has been cleared of any wrongdoing related to the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scandal.

However, it could leave the executive in limbo for up to a year, as it emerges that the inquiry into RHI will not supply any preliminary findings to speed the process along.

"There is a need for this inquiry to come to conclusions before we can nominate (Arlene Foster) for a position of first minister," said Adams.

He added: "The first position we put was that Arlene Foster stand aside until a preliminary report. Now we are being told there will be no preliminary report.

"Our position is very straightforward. We will not be consenting to Arlene Foster being first minister until this issue is cleared up."

He added that "what was good enough for Peter Robinson (who twice stood aside as first minister amid controversy) is good enough for Arlene Foster".

O'Neill, who replaced Martin McGuinness in January, said she is to hold talks with both the British and Irish governments to discuss the way forward for the region's political institutions.

"I also made contact with the leaders of all the political parties to talk about next week and how we are going to conduct ourselves in the time ahead.

"We obviously have a period of three weeks in front of us and whilst the task isn't going to be easy it is achievable if people come at it with the right attitude.

"On Monday morning I will lead our team into the assembly where we are ready to deal with all the issues," she added.

The pro-Brexit DUP narrowly remained the region's largest party by just one seat as a Sinn Fein surge saw the republican party make major gains over the DUP.

DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson has insisted there is no question over Foster's future as party leader despite the party's disappointing performance.

Donaldson said that despite the bruising election the DUP is still the largest party and their focus now "is on Arlene and the party getting a government up and running again at Stormont".

"I must say, I am not aware of any election in the past where the leader of the largest party resigns because they have won the election.

"We need to learn the lesson and understand what people were saying in this election and what the key messages are.

"We have been given the responsibility as the main party to take the lead at Stormont and that is what we intend to do so we are not going to get bogged down on what some people want to focus on, which is personalities.

"Arlene is leading the largest party and we need to get on with the job of forming a government that works for us all," said Donaldson.

Sinn Fein and the DUP now have three weeks to establish a government.

If a government cannot be formed between the two main parties within that time then, under law, another election will be called.

However, Donaldson said he does not believe Westminster will want another election.

"If we can't get a government formed within three weeks I don't think the Westminster government will allow another election. I think they will introduce direct rule.

"We are determined to work to achieve (a powersharing government) but if it doesn't happen I fear we could be looking at a lengthy period of direct rule."

Only 1,168 first preference votes separated the DUP and Sinn Fein and, for the first time, Unionists will not have an overall majority at Stormont.

Amid the fallout, Mike Nesbitt said he would resign as Ulster Unionist leader.

It was a positive campaign for both the SDLP and Alliance who both maintained their seats.

The election was called after the collapse of a coalition led by Arlene Foster's DUP and Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness.

McGuinness resigned over Foster's refusal to step aside as first minister pending an inquiry into the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme, which could cost the Northern Ireland taxpayers £490m.</s>Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader Mike Nesbitt has announced he will resign.

With the UUP failing to make any ground on the Democratic Unionists in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections, and losing a number of high-profile seats, the former TV anchor fell on his sword, saying: “The buck stops here.”

His campaign pledge to transfer a second preference vote to the nationalist SDLP appears to have been his undoing, with unionist voters clearly not keen on him voicing support for any candidate that favoured a united Ireland.

He said that he will remain in position while his successor is found.

Mr Nesbitt was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2011 and retained his seat in the 2017 poll. He will remain as member for Strangford and said it had been an “absolute honour” to lead the party.

“In pure terms the buck stops here,” he said.

He said his real regret was that Northern Ireland society appeared to have emerged from the election more polarised.

Mr Nesbitt said the electorate had rejected his hope for a post-sectarian vote.

“We will get there,” he said. “Some day Northern Ireland will vote as a normal democracy. We will vote in a post-sectarian election but it's now clear it will not happen during the duration of my political career.”</s>Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has said the idea that Northern Ireland will always have a unionist majority has been "demolished".

His party reduced the DUP’s 10-seat Stormont advantage to a single seat in its best performance in Northern Ireland election history.

Mr Adams said: The election was, in many, many ways, a watershed election. Clearly the unionist majority in the assembly has been ended. And the notion of a permanent or a perpetual unionist majority has been demolished.

The Democratic Unionist Party won 28 of the 90 seats to narrowly remain the largest party in Northern Ireland by just over 1,000 votes.

Both parties will now have three weeks to form a new power-sharing government to avoid devolved power returning to Westminster for the first time in a decade.

Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire said: Everyone now has a shared responsibility to engage intensively in the short days available to us to establish a strong and stable administration.

Relations between the two biggest parties are at their lowest since power-sharing began in 2007 and Sinn Fein has demanded the resignation of outgoing first minister Arlene Foster as one of its terms for re-entering government.

Sinn Fein won 27 seats, the SDLP got 12, the UUP won 10, Alliance eight, the Green Party two, People Before Profit one seat, Traditional Unionist Voice one and there was one independent unionist.

The elections – triggered by the collapse of devolved government in Northern Ireland six weeks ago following controversy over a botched green energy scheme – saw turnout hit its highest level, 65%, in almost two decades.

DUP leader Arlene Foster told supporters after winning re-election: Let us now move forward with hope, hope that civility can return to our politics.

There is work to be done to quickly mend the relationship which has been frayed by the discord of this election.

The result is the closest nationalists had come to becoming the largest party in Stormont.

But the DUP’s failure to win at least 30 seats means it also no longer has the power to veto legislation, including the blocking of same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland.

Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt announced his resignation after his party’s poor showing.

He said: In pure terms, the buck stops here. Some day Northern Ireland will vote as a normal democracy.

We will vote in a post-sectarian election, but it’s now clear it will not happen during the duration of my political career.

The nationalist SDLP fared better than expected, replacing the UUP as the third largest party in the Assembly.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said he will consider joining any new power-sharing government.

We are very, very happy. This has been a fantastic turnaround for the SDLP. In a very poisonous atmosphere. We have come out with an increased support and I don’t think anybody was predicting that.

If the three-week deadline to strike a power-sharing deal expires, the Government could be forced to call another snap election or could opt to reintroduce direct rule.

Four former Northern Ireland Executive members – the SLDP’s Alex Attwood; the UUP’s Danny Kennedy and the DUP’s Nelson McCausland and Lord Morrow lost their seats in the election.

In the previous Assembly election last May, the DUP won 38 seats compared with Sinn Fein’s 28.

Northern Ireland uses the single transferable vote system – a form of proportional representation – to elect members of the Legislative Assembly.

Unlike the first past the post system, it ensures the number of seats each party wins reflects its vote share.</s>Nationalism made major strides at the expense of unionists in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections yesterday.

Unionists have lost their long enduring and highly symbolic overall majority in the chamber.

Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt announced his resignation after a poor showing, while DUP leader and former first minister Arlene Foster will face scrutiny after her party fell below the threshold to trigger a contentious Stormont veto mechanism.

The DUP have 28 seats, Sinn Fein had 27, SDLP 12, the UUP 10, the Alliance Party 8, the Greens 2, People Before Profit 1, the Traditional Unionist Voice 1 and Independent Unionist 1.

The nationalist SDLP fared better than many expected, replacing the UUP as the third largest party in the Assembly.

The results may be rendered moot if the main parties fail to a strike a deal to form a new powersharing executive within three weeks.

In neighbouring constituency Fermanagh South Tyrone, DUP Leader Arlene Foster topped the poll and was elected on the second count with 8754 votes. Sinn Féin's Michelle Gildernew and Jemmas Dolan were elected on the third count.

Sinn Féin's Sean Lynch and UUP Rosemary Barton were elected on the forth count, without reaching the quota. DUP Maurice Morrow and SDLP Richie McPhillips both fell short of being elected.</s>Sinn Fein and the nationalist SDLP have hailed the Stormont election results which have seen both parties fare strongly and Northern Ireland's Unionist parties lose overall control of the region's Assembly for the first time in over a century.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) remains the largest party with 28 of the 90 available seats, just one more than Sinn Fein which now have 27.

Overall turnout was high at 64.8% of the electorate. The DUP failure to win 30 seats means they will be unable to block same-sex marriage in the province.

The gains by Sinn Fein and SDLP mean the Assembly is now equally split between nationalist and unionist factions.

The SDLP becomes the third biggest party, but the Ulster Unionists (UUP) slipped to fourth, prompting the resignation of leader Mike Nesbitt.

He told journalists at the Park Avenue Hotel in Belfast: "Some day Northern Ireland will vote as a normal democracy. We will vote in a post-sectarian election, but it's now clear it will not happen during the duration of my political career."

In contrast, Michelle O'Neill, of Sinn Fein, which attracted a 27.9% share of the votes, said the results were "a brilliant day for equality… a great day for democracy."

Ms O'Neill took over the helm of the nationalist party from Martin McGuinness, who stepped aside due to illness in January 2017 after the collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly because of a scandal over green energy policies.

Under Northern Ireland's power-sharing agreement, Sinn Fein and the DUP must now form a coalition within three weeks or face the prospect of power being returned to Westminster. But this may prove problematic: Sinn Fein has demanded the resignation of former first minister Arlene Foster, who won her seat and made a plea for civility to return to politics.

"Let us now move forward with hope, hope that civility can return to our politics," Ms Foster told supporters, speaking to Sky News. "There is work to be done to quickly mend the relationship which has been frayed by the discord of this election."</s>Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster spoke of "challenging" results in Northern Ireland's snap election, conceding it had been "a very good day for Sinn Fein" (AFP Photo/Paul FAITH)

Belfast (AFP) - Northern Ireland's main political parties on Saturday were facing a three-week deadline to mend fences after snap elections aimed at sorting out the bad blood between them left them deadlocked.

If the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Fein, the Irish republican party, cannot agree to form a power-sharing executive -- a cornerstone of peace in Northern Ireland -- then governance of the British province could return to London.

Commentators said both sides had a long way to go in a short space of time to sort out their differences.

In a historic shake-up, the elections saw the DUP lose its absolute majority for the first time, even though it narrowly scraped ahead of a resurgent Sinn Fein.

Final results from the regional elections on Thursday showed that the DUP won 28 seats in Northern Ireland's semi-autonomous 90-seat assembly, while Sinn Fein garnered 27 seats.

The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), a nationalist party, won 12 seats; the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) won 10; the cross-community Alliance Party took eight; and other groupings won five.

The result means that unionist parties no longer command an absolute majority in Northern Ireland's legislature for the first time since the province's creation in 1921.

The results also left the DUP two seats short of the 30-seat threshold required to deploy on its own a so-called petition of concern veto, something the party has used to block gay marriage.

Tensions between the Catholic and socialist Sinn Fein and the Protestant and conservative DUP boiled over in January when Sinn Fein collapsed the government.

Sinn Fein refused to work with DUP leader Arlene Foster as Northern Ireland's first minister over a bungled green energy programme she had introduced when she was economy minister.

The tensions were also exacerbated by Brexit, which the DUP backs but Sinn Fein opposes.

If the stand-off cannot be resolved, then the assembly could be suspended and governance of the province would be transferred to London.

"Let us move forward with hope," Foster said after the count.

"Hope that the common good will be able to prevail; hope that civility can return to our politics; hope that a functioning assembly can be restored; and hope that a Northern Ireland with so many overlapping cultural identities can be home to all of us."

Michelle O'Neill, Sinn Fein's leader in Northern Ireland, said the election result was "amazing".

"That's because people know that action needed to be taken," she said.

"We now need to get down to the business of fixing what's wrong and delivering for all citizens."

If Sinn Fein will not agree to work with the DUP before the three-week deadline expires, the Northern Ireland Assembly is likely to be suspended and its devolved powers returned to London -- so-called direct rule.

Stephen Grimason, a former spokesman for the Northern Ireland executive, told the BBC: "There's been so much change that its difficult to see how you plot forward getting back into government. There would need to be quite a lot of negotiation.

"Both the DUP and Sinn Fein have very difficult decisions to take about the red lines that they had before this all started."

The election energised voters, with turnout reaching 64.8 percent -- the highest level since the first vote after Northern Ireland's 1998 peace deal which brought an end to the Troubles, the three decades of violence in which more than 3,500 people were killed.

But the results prompted Mike Nesbitt, head of the Ulster Unionist Party, to quit, after his party failed to make inroads with a proposal to form an alternative executive with the SDLP.

"Some day Northern Ireland will vote as a normal democracy. We will vote in a post-sectarian election but it's now clear it will not happen during the duration of my political career," he said.

The pro-unionist News Letter daily said the election "raises serious questions about the future of unionism and how unionists should move ahead".

"Foster must not now rush into any arrangement to prop up devolution. Direct rule under this present UK government is far preferable to hasty concessions to Sinn Fein," the paper said.
Mike Nesbitt announces he is standing down as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) following the party's poor performance in yesterday's Northern Ireland Assembly election.