More than one in every seven councillors in Northern Ireland are unelected.
Some 65 of the 462 councillors across the region's 11 local authorities have been co-opted, meaning they were appointed by their party to replace someone else. The growing tally follows a raft of new faces being appointed in recent weeks to succeed councillors who were elected to the Stormont Assembly last month.
Sinn Féin has the most co-opted councillors with 18, followed by the Alliance Party with 17 and the DUP with 16. Five of the SDLP's councillors, three for the Ulster Unionist Party and six others were co-opted since the last local government election in 2019.
Read more: DUP deputy leader selected as councillor after stepping aside from Stormont
The next council election is scheduled for May 2023. Belfast City Council has the most co-optees with 14, followed by Derry City and Strabane council with nine.
Alliance had to appoint various new councillors after many were elected as MLAs in May when the party's number of Assembly seats more than doubled to 17. Newly elected East Antrim MLA Danny Donnelly was replaced on the local council by his wife Maeve Donnelly, while new North Belfast MLA Nuala McAllister was succeeded on the city council by her partner Sam Nelson.
In other moves, elected Belfast Alliance councillor Sian Mulholland switched to Lisburn and Castlereagh council after two party councillors in the area were elected as MLAs for Lagan Valley. An Alliance spokeswoman said new council representatives are selected in line with internal democratic processes.
DUP deputy leader Paula Bradley was co-opted to Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council to replace Phillip Brett, who succeeded her as an MLA when she chose not to contest her Assembly seat. Sinn Féin's Jim Brennan replaced Cathy Mason on Newry, Mourne and Down council when she was elected as an MLA.
The co-option system faced particular scrutiny last month when Emma Little-Pengelly was chosen to replace DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson at Stormont just days after he was elected to the Assembly. After the poll Sir Jeffrey confirmed he intended to remain at Westminster as an MP until issues with Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol are resolved.
David McCann, deputy editor of Northern Ireland politics website Slugger O'Toole, said there should be greater transparency from parties about their potential co-option choices prior to elections. He said: "Co-options are increasingly used across the Assembly and council.
"As these numbers rise, it would be helpful to the voters to have parties publish a list of names for those who would fill any vacancies if someone steps down."
In the months ahead of May's Stormont Assembly poll around one in four MLAs were unelected. Some constituency seats had swapped hands several times in the period since the previous Assembly election in March 2017.
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