The people of Northern Ireland have spoken in a sharp and discordant tongue. Sinn Féin has made the historic leap, surpassing the SDLP to become the largest nationalist party. The Democratic Unionist Party has overtaken the Ulster Unionist Party to become the biggest party in the Assembly.
What has happened was inevitable for some considerable time. But the shock to the political establishment, North and South, is that it has happened right now.
There can be no attempt to spin away what the electorate had to say. There was a determined shift by thousands of voters towards the two hardline unionist and republican parties at the expense of the moderate, middle-ground support for the Belfast Agreement. The SDLP, Women's Coalition and smaller unionist parties lost out to the extremist pro- and anti-agreement protagonists. Mr David Trimble managed to increase first preference votes, but it did not translate into extra seats. And the most surprising result surely, in this context, was the election of Dr Kieran Deeny, the cross-community candidate for Omagh hospital, as an independent.
The DUP, in the wake of the Assembly elections, has already started to use the language of Sinn Féin. Each one of its leadership figures stated that its mandate must be recognised and accepted. That new reality, however, is not something the DUP is prepared to accord to Sinn Féin. The issue now is whether or not the leadership, coming behind Dr Ian Paisley, has the vision and the willingness to engage in genuine dialogue.
A new challenge is posed also to the leadership of Sinn Féin. There are no circumstances which can be envisaged where the DUP would enter a devolved Executive with the party without the standing down of the IRA. Acts of completion of decommissioning would change the whole political landscape. Mr Gerry Adams has now received an historic mandate to prove that the political process can produce results. Wouldn't it be a sad irony if the guns could be put beyond use for Dr Paisley, rather than Mr Trimble?
The cruelty of politics has relegated the UUP and the SDLP into second-party status in the election. They made enormous contributions, beyond the self-interest of their own parties, to the development of peace and political stability in Northern Ireland. Yet, Mr Trimble is facing a new challenge to his leadership. The SDLP, which nurtured Sinn Féin along the constitutional path of politics, has lost several seats and experienced a serious drop in its vote.
But the big loser in the election is the Belfast Agreement. It behoves the two governments, once again, to manage the new configuration. They will move towards a formal review of the agreement next week. The real fall-out from the Assembly elections will not be known until the DUP and Sinn Féin place their negotiating positions on the table. Then, and only then, can a determination be made as to whether politics is, indeed, paralysed.