Despite a complex voting system, party strength in the Senead usually reflects that in the Dail.
In future they will be handed out on the basis of party strength and not that of political groupings.
For Alliance, this represents a major opportunity to build on last year's East Belfast success as they try to secure enough MLAs to get a ministerial seat on the basis of their party strength, not just the cross community votes of others.
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But he mistakenly chose to remain outside the House of Commons while trying to build the party's strength across the country.
The committee's other recommendation, that policy development grants should depend on a party's strength at Stormont, not just the number of MPs who take their Westminster seats, reads like good news for Sinn Fein, the Ulster Unionists and Alliance.
Until then, gauging party support - and strength in the electoral college - is mainly a matter of educated guesswork.
And the strength of his party's support for him faces critical tests in the coming months.
Its relevance as a prediction of grassroots strength within the party has waned over the last few years.
Ministers are uneasy about the move on several fronts, some related to the degree of opposition within their own party, others to the strength of local feeling, including the Daily Post campaign, and the precedent of actively moving the service out of the Welsh health system and into the English one.
Miller and other Green Party leaders argued that the special election gave them an unusual opportunity to show their strength and to institutionalize the Green Party as a legitimate contestant for office.
It suggests an overestimation of Congress's strength, and the party's failure to reassure the TC's irascible leader, Mamata Banerjee, is careless at best.
And creativity has not been a strength of the Republican party.
He said a fitting end to New Labour's revolution would be a formal union of Liberalism and Labourism, but that Labour would need the generosity to reach out to a smaller party from a position of great strength.
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But it remains probable that with Chavez's party backing him, Maduro has the necessary strength and support to win an election, said Carlos Manuel Indacochea, a professor at George Washington University.
And while Golden Dawn gained strength, another far-right party, LAOS, lost its small presence in the 300-seat parliament as voters punished it for its support for Greece's austerity program, Gemenis pointed out.
JMP's candidate, Faisal bin Shamlan, is a liberal-leaning southerner, the bulk of its strength comes from the Islah or Reform Party.
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The truth is that the unions' influence in Washington reflects less their own strength than the weakness of other parts of the Democratic Party.
The good news for the pair, who got started on the strength of a chat at a mate's engagement party, is that they've made rapid headway with critics.
"He should be remembered as one of the most effective legislators in the history of the US Senate, a symbol of the strength and independence of the US legislature, " said the party's leader David Cameron.
But while fortified, Lula's party will still be outnumbered in Congress and in the governorships by the combined strength of Mr Cardoso's coalition parties.
Whitman could well face a conservative primary opponent, but her money and strength in the state GOP make her an overwhelming favorite to win her party's Senate nomination.
Second, he showed the strength of his self-belief when he, almost alone, insisted the party would win the 1970 election, which it did.
The Bharatiya Janata Party said it hadn't taken a call on moving a motion in Parliament to test the strength of the government.
Instead of running back to academia, Warren went on to challenge Scott, who had been the surprise winner of the 2010 election to replace the late Senator Ted Kennedy, riding into office on the strength of a telegenic pick-up truck, and the support of the suddenly powerful Tea Party.
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But Muslims, on the strength of Congress's success in last year's general election, are now returning to the party, buoying its hopes for a revival of its former dominance.
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