Northern Ireland Assembly election 2016: Who is going to win? What are the key issues?

Everything you need to know about Thursday's Northern Irish election

The Northern Ireland Parliament at Stormont (Getty)

What’s being voted on?

The composition of the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont – which determines the final shape of the power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive.

What are the main issues at stake?

Recent issues have included what to do about paramilitarism, and discussion over welfare cuts.

Read our guides to the 2016 UK elections

The parties are broadly agreed on other policies, like cutting the corporation tax rate to 12.5 per cent to bring it into line with the Republic of Ireland.

Who’s going to win?

Arlene Foster became the leader of the DUP and the First Minister of Northern Ireland in January 2016 (PA)

In a sense, nobody. Whatever the results, under the Good Friday agreement, the NI executive will be include both unionist and republican elements.

Parties are, in theory, signed up to the Fresh Start agreement which sets out a broad programme.

The DUP and Sinn Féin were the largest parties after the previous elections and they’re expected to be the biggest parties again.

When will we know the result?

The ballots will be counted on Friday and the final results should become clear by Saturday.

How do the elections work?

MLAs – Members of the Legislative Assembly – are elected using the Single Transferrable Vote (STV) system – a system of proportional representation that allows voters to rank individual candidates.

The system is also used for elections in the Republic of Ireland and produces broadly proportional results.