Northern Ireland general election, 1969

← 1965

24 February 1969

1973 →

All 52 seats to the Northern Ireland House of Commons
27 seats were needed for a majority

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Terence O'Neill	Eddie McAteer	Tom Boyd
Party	UUP	Nationalist	NI Labour
Leader since	25 March 1963	2 June 1964	1958
Leader's seat	Bannside	Foyle (Defeated)	Belfast Pottinger (Defeated)
Last election	36 seats, 59.1%	9 seats (8.2%)	2 seats (20.4%)
Seats won	36	6	2
Seat change		3
Popular vote	269,501	42,315	45,113
Percentage	48.2%	7.6%	8.1%
Swing	10.9%	0.6%	12.3%

Election results by constituency.

Prime Minister before election

Terence O'Neill
UUP

Elected Prime Minister

Terence O'Neill
UUP

The Northern Ireland general election, 1969 was held on Monday 24 February 1969. It was the last election to the Parliament of Northern Ireland before its abolition by the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973.

Unlike previous elections that produced a large unambiguous majority for the Ulster Unionist Party, this one give more complex results. The Ulster Unionists were divided over a variety of reforms introduced by Prime Minister Terence O'Neill and this division spilled over into the election with official Ulster Unionist candidates standing either in support of or opposition to O'Neill and a number of independent pro O'Neill Unionists standing against opposing candidates. The results left O'Neill without a clear majority for his reforms and he resigned not long afterwards.

This was the first (and only) election since the 1929 election to see changes to the constituencies. The Queen's University of Belfast seat was abolished and four new constituencies were created in the suburbs of Belfast to compensate for population growth there.

Electorate: 912,087 (778,031 in contested seats); Turnout: 71.9% (559,087).

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