The Protestants of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and their arch rivals, the Catholics of Sinn Fein, have strengthened their holds on Northern Ireland's legislature, results from this week's election are showing.
With 72 of 108 seats from Wednesday's provincial assembly election counted, the clear victors are the DUP with 25 seats, and Sinn Fein -- associated with the Irish Republican Army -- which secured 24 seats.
Four other moderate parties won 23 seats between them. All winners were expected to be confirmed by Friday evening.
While the DUP and Sinn Fein are polar opposites, the strong showing for the main groups could make agreement on a power-sharing government more likely, since the moderates' attempt at joint rule collapsed five years ago.
"This has been quite an important election for the province because we haven't really had a government in nearly five years," Susan Hodgett of the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland explained to Canada AM Friday.
The last assembly did not even sit for a full day after it was elected.
"It's very difficult to know what's going to happen here," Hodgett says.
"No one really knows if these parties are going to be able to work with each other. Let's just say, it really depends on how much they want power. It depends how much they want to control the reins of power."
The challenge now is how to forge a coalition government.
"If we could do that it would be probably be the most important historical even to have occurred in Irish history in 100 years," Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein told reporters.
Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams has said his party is ready to agree to power-sharing and that the DUP's Ian Paisley has to make the next move. Paisley says Sinn Fein still has more to do to convince the DUP it is now a party of peace and democracy. But he has not ruled out an eventual agreement.
For decades, Sinn Fein supported the IRA's bloody campaign to overthrow Britain's hold on Northern Ireland. The British and Irish governments say Sinn Fein and the IRA's peacemaking moves have removed any excuse for the Democratic Unionists not to come to an agreement on a cabinet.
Paisley, an anti-Catholic evangelist who could claim the top power-sharing post of "first minister,'' said he wouldn't be rushed.
"The hard negotiations are now going to start,'' Paisley, 80, said Thursday in the town of Ballymena.
Britain has threatened to impose indefinite direct rule, with help from Dublin, if Northern Ireland's parties do not meet a deadline of March 26 for agreeing on a government.
Neither side want to see it come to that.
While nationalists within Sinn Fein want to see an end to all British involvement in the province, unionists don't like the idea that Dublin could have a greater say in Northern Ireland's affairs.
