SUSPENDED DUP member Jonathan Bell has confirmed he will stand as an independent candidate in next month's assembly election.
Mr Bell, who has been an MLA for Strangford since 2010, secured just under 3,400 first preference votes as a DUP candidate last May.
His share was lower than economy minister Simon Hamilton and agriculture minister Michelle McIlveen, party colleagues who were also returned in the constituency.
Mr Bell, a former enterprise minister, will now face three DUP ministers on March 2, following a decision to switch education minister Peter Weir from North Down to Strangford.
It will make for a tight race for the five seats in the constituency, where Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt topped the poll last May.
He is running again alongside party colleague Philip Smith, who took the sixth seat last year behind Alliance's Kellie Armstrong, who is also standing again.
In December, Mr Bell was suspended by the DUP after giving an unauthorised TV interview in which he made a series of allegations about the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme.
Announcing his candidacy on Tuesday, he said "cash for ash" has disgusted many people.
"I want to stand for a more honest and a more fair politics," he told the BBC.
"Less than the numbers I could count on one hand have told me that I am wrong. People came out of their houses to beg me to stand.
"I have a huge volume of material (about the RHI scheme) which I have not yet disclosed because I believe that the proper place for that... is in front of a judge-led public inquiry. I look forward to placing my hand on the Bible and giving evidence to the judge."
Mr Bell said his suspension by the DUP had left him "sad" and the fall-out had caused "enormous difficulty for myself and my family".
"People know me, they know I am a democratic unionist. The advice that I was given was that it wouldn't be possible to stand (for the DUP). I have been forced to do this. This is not my choice.
"I will be voting for all the unionist candidates down the list, including my colleagues in the Democratic Unionist Party."
The independent unionist did not offer his support for an Irish Language Act - which DUP leader Arlene Foster has dismissed - but said that the language "belongs to me as much as it does to anyone else".
A DUP councillor in Antrim and Newtownabbey, Pamela Barr, tweeted Mr Bell, who is her brother-in-law, with the message: "Support you 100%".
