order to ensure that the interests of minorities were protected and limit the electoral success of Sinn Féin, the Government of Ireland Act established proportional representation (P.R.) as the electoral system to be used in local government and the parliaments of Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. It did, however, allow for the parliaments to change the electoral system three years after first meeting. The Government of Northern Ireland contemplated abandoning P.R. in 1924, but feared antagonizing the Labour-led British government, so shelved the idea. However, after the Unionist Party lost 8 seats in the 1925 Northern Ireland general election, first past the post was introduced in time for the 1929 election. Despite losing more than 4% of the vote share compared with 1925, the Unionist Party managed to pick up 4 seats. Proportional representation for local government elections was abolished by the Northern Ireland government in 1920 for Northern Ireland's local elections in 1924. The property franchise (which granted votes in local elections only to those who owned property) weighted representation heavily in favour of the Protestant community, as did the plural business votes they enjoyed for parliamentary elections. The result was that many towns and cities with a Catholic majority, even a substantial one, were Unionist-controlled: examples included Derry, Armagh, Dungannon, and Enniskillen. Electoral boundaries were carefully engineered: Belfast's representatives in Stormont went from 4 to 16 in 1921, but there was no increase in the nationalist representation, and Belfast continued to return one Nationalist Member of Parliament (MP). In the 1965 Stormont elections the Ulster Unionist Party won 34 out of the 52 available seats, while in the 1966 elections to the Westminster parliament they won 11 of Northern Ireland's available 12 seats. The Stormont Assembly returned the Ulster Unionist Party to office continuously between Northern Ireland's founding in 1922 and the abolition of the Parliament in 1972. Policing. Of the institutions of state, the police in particular were rightfully, based on all available evidence, seen by Catholics and nationalists as supporting (and in many cases collaborating with) the Protestant majority and Unionist cause. Representation of Catholics in the Royal Ulster Constabulary, formed in 1922, never exceeded 20% and by the 1960s had sunk to 12%. The reserve police force (the Ulster Special Constabulary) was composed upon its formation largely of the paramilitary Ulster Volunteers and led by the Ulster Volunteers' former commander, Wilfrid Spender and remained almost