Eventually, in October 2006, the governments and the parties, including the DUP, made the St Andrews Agreement and a new transitional assembly came into effect on 24 November 2006.

[2] The British government agreed to fresh elections and the transitional assembly was dissolved on 30 January 2007, after which campaigning began.

[3] The election was conducted using the single transferable vote applied to six-seat constituencies, each of which corresponds to a UK parliamentary seat.

[4] One of the key issues in the election was which two political parties would gain the largest number of Assembly seats.

The first column indicates the party of the Member of the House of Commons (MP) returned by the corresponding parliamentary constituency in the 2005 United Kingdom general election under the first-past-the-post voting method.

Using this system, the executive appointed in 2007 was as follows: There are two junior ministers in OFMDFM who are, at present, Jeffery Donaldson (DUP) and Gerry Kelly (SF).

†Patricia Lewsley stood down prior to the dissolution of the assembly ↑ As a sitting MLA, Norah Beare defected from the UUP to the DUP, and is therefore unselected rather than deselected.

[clarification needed] Following their de-selection, both Ennis and Hyland unsuccessfully sought election under the UKUP and independent labels respectively.