THE Republic's electorate has spoken but it's a garbled message that may take some time to decipher.
The two parties of the incumbent coalition are arguably those that have emerged worse off. It appears Fine Gael was too quick to believe its own hype. At the outset of the campaign, an Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI opinion poll forecast that the party would win 28 per cent of the vote, indicating clear blue water between it and Fianna Fáil, which was lagging seven points behind. However, after what is widely acknowledged to have been a poor campaign with no late surge in support for Enda Kenny's party, the gap between the big two narrowed to little more than one per cent.
Mr Kenny has thus far batted away calls for him to reconsider his position as leader but it's impossible to say that after the flux of the coming weeks whether he'll still be favourite to take the taoiseach's job. Fine Gael seems to have held its ground in Dublin but in rural Ireland people have questioned the party's claims of economic recovery. Notably, in terms of its share of the vote, this performance is worse for Fine Gael than the 2007 election that returned Bertie Ahern as taoiseach.
Despite retaining her seat in Dublin West, the calls for Tánaiste Joan Burton to step down as Labour leader will be more difficult to dismiss though so far she has resisted them. A Labour annihilation was predicted and duly delivered, with the party on course to lose all but a fraction of its 33 seats.
Sinn Féin has stolen many of the red items from Labour's wardrobe and now assumes the role of the Dáil's main left-leaning party. Its performance was not without its setbacks – including Paul Donnelly's failure to get a seat in Dublin West and the uncertainty over Padraig MacLochlainn taking a third seat in Donegal – but in centenary of the Easter Rising it can at least point to a upward trajectory if not the transformation in the political landscape it had once forecast.
No doubt Sinn Féin will be eyeing Fianna Fáil with a degree of envy. Michéal Martin's party is still tainted by its lead role in the crash and remains in the process of rebuilding. Taking almost a quarter of the available votes is therefore a respectable performance, even if it's unlikely to be result in a commensurate number of TDs.
Expect plenty of manoeuvring and posturing between now and when the Dáil reconvenes on March 10. A so-called 'grand coalition' that would see the near-century old divisions of the Civil War put to bed appears to be the most obvious option, but as the smaller partner Fianna Fáil will surely be wary of handing the mantle of main opposition to Sinn Féin
