So Mr David Trimble is re-installed as First Minister of the Northern Ireland Executive and Mr Mark Durkan is elected Deputy First Minister for the first time. The Executive, representing a unique coalition of parties from all sides of the political spectrum, is back in business.
There will be meetings of the North/South Ministerial Council and the British/Irish Council in the near future. The first meeting of the Policing Board of the four-day-old Police Service of Northern Ireland will be held today. Things seem almost normal.
But, not quite yet. The elections of Mr Trimble and Mr Durkan mark the full-scale restoration of power sharing, albeit after a rewriting of the rules. There are some reservations that it was necessary to review the voting procedures to enable three members of the previously non-aligned Alliance Party and one member of the Women's Coalition to re-designate as unionists to meet the requirement of cross-community support. It is no mean achievement in such a divided society, nonetheless, that the First Minister and Deputy First Minister both received 70 votes for as opposed to only 29 against.
The scuffles in the Great Hall of the parliament building when elected Assembly members engaged in rowdy scenes as Mr Trimble and Mr Durkan emerged for their post-election press conference, are a testament to the hatred and divisions which are deeply-embedded in a sectarian society. They will be condemned by most right-thinking people, North and South, on this island.
But in their own primitive way, they represent the challenge to be faced. The Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, tried to tie-up the loose ends surrounding the elections when he confirmed yesterday that the review of the Assembly's voting structures would commence on November 19th. He also said he saw no reason why the next elections to the Assembly should be held any earlier than May 1st, 2003.
In all of these circumstances, the Belfast Agreement and its political institutions have been given 18 months to bed down. Their restoration is under-pinned this time by the first act of IRA decommissioning and a scheme worked out with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning to completely put arms beyond use. The First Minister and Deputy First Minister have pledged jointly to work together to provide a stable administration. Mr Trimble acknowledged that the concerns and attitudes of some of those who remain opposed to the agreement have to be addressed: "so that when we come, as we will, in 18 months time to the major electoral test, we will be in a position to say this is working".
The Belfast Agreement is the hymn-sheet from which all of the pro-agreement parties must sing. They have no choice but to work together. The alternative to the normalisation of politics is visible every day outside Holy Cross Primary School in Ardoyne. Mr Trimble and Mr Durkan must go for it now.