The election was originally planned for May 2003,[2] but was delayed by Paul Murphy, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

The SDLP, which had been Northern Ireland's dominant Irish nationalist party during the 1980s and 1990s, went into this election with concerns that they could lose numerous seats to fellow nationalists Sinn Féin, who had overtaken the SDLP in terms of votes and seats at the 2001 United Kingdom general election.

[3][4][5] Commentator, Brian Feeney, said: "The SDLP has a series of baronial figures - John Hume, Seamus Mallon, Eddie McGrady - who hung on to power and didn't groom their successors early enough.

Shortly after the election three Ulster Unionist MLAs, Jeffrey Donaldson, Norah Beare and Arlene Foster, quit the party[9][10] and later defected to the DUP.

The first column indicates the party of the Member of the House of Commons (MP) returned by the corresponding parliamentary constituency in the 2001 United Kingdom general election under the first-past-the-post voting method.