The DUP and Sinn Féin were tonight poised for a resounding success in the North's Assembly elections, with predictions of significant losses for the Ulster Unionist Party.
But the results will come against the background of a record low voter turnout - which is predicted to reach a figure of 55 per cent or lower.
The election process has also been hit by slow vote counting across Northern Ireland, with the first handful of results declared 20 hours after the polls closed and ten hours after ballot boxes were opened.
Election officials blamed the complexity of having to deal with ballot papers from the Assembly election, local council elections and the UK-wide AV referendum at the same time.
But tallies of party performance gave clear indications of a strong showing by the DUP and Sinn Féin, as well as gains for the cross-community Alliance Party.
The final shape of the 108 seat Stormont legislature will not be known until Saturday evening. But the delays in counts were not all blamed on the complexity of the process.
In the Omagh count centre electoral staff reportedly used hairdryers to peel apart votes that had become sodden when a ballot box got wet in the rain.
In the 2007 Assembly election the DUP took 36 seats, Sinn Fein 28, the Ulster Unionists 18, the SDLP 16 and the cross-community Alliance Party took seven.
The first result declared tonight was in the Border constituency of Newry and Armagh where the sitting Sinn Féin MP Conor Murphy topped the poll. The SDLP’s Dominic Bradley and Ulster Unionist Danny Kennedy were also elected on the first count.
But across the North, the Ulster Unionist Party in particular seemed in danger of suffering losses. This follows a disastrous general election in which its partnership with the Conservatives failed to win it a single seat.
There is even a risk that the Ulster Unionists could slip into fourth place at the Assembly, behind the SDLP.
But with each of the 18 constituencies returning six Assembly members, the battle for the last seat will prove crucial in determining the final make-up of the next Stormont regime.
Ulster Unionist leader Tom Elliott told the BBC it was too early to know the fate of his party.
But turnout may also be a factor in undermining the Ulster Unionists, with some observers arguing that the skilled vote management of the DUP and Sinn Féin might help them get over the line in tight contests.
DUP leader Peter Robinson said: “It is very pleasing and rewarding to hear that right across the province our candidates are doing so well because they put a lot of work into it.
“We didn’t ask for a mandate from the people to enhance the standing of the Democratic Unionist Party, we asked for a mandate to keep Northern Ireland moving forward.”
Mr Robinson was set to romp home in East Belfast despite having the lost the constituency’s Westminster seat in the general election.
His career was rocked last year by the revelations that his wife and former MP Iris Robinson had an affair with a teenager and had secured loans from developers to help her lover set up a business.
The DUP leader has since made a major political recovery, but he declined to comment on his likely revival in East Belfast until the votes were counted.
Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness said there was “considerable dismay” over the delay in vote counting.
But he welcomed indications of success for Sinn Féin and said the electorate was endorsing the parties who had co-operated to deliver for people at Stormont.
His claims were endorsed by his party president Gerry Adams, who now sits in the Dáil, who visited the count centre dealing with his former west Belfast constituency.
Mr Adams said he believed his party was set to have a good election. He argued Sinn Féin had been reinvigorated by its recent success in the Dáil election . In what he characterised as a further boost to the party’s profile as the only all-Ireland party, Sinn Féin last week also won three seats in the Irish senate.
Mr Adams said the UUP and the SDLP both held seats in the last ministerial Executive at Stormont, but had criticised the conduct of the DUP and Sinn Féin, who were the dominant presence in the outgoing administration.
The smaller parties had tried to criticise the NI government, despite being part of it, and now appeared to have been punished by voters, Mr Adams said.
He added: “I think the problem for the SDLP and the UUP is that rather than joining in the Executive, keeping their own particular identity and working with the rest of us, they tried to cast themselves very artificially as being in government and opposition at the same time. That doesn’t work.”
A turnout of 48 per cent was confirmed in East Antrim, while 57 per cent voted in Foyle, 53 per cent in Lagan Valley, 46 per cent in North Down, 55 per cent in Upper Bann and 64 per cent in the mainly nationalist West Tyrone constituency.
Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) candidate Jim Allister looks set to take a Northern Ireland Assembly seat in North Antrim. The SDLP's Declan O'Loan said he thought Mr Allister would take a Stormont seat along with three DUP candidates and Daithí McKay of Sinn Féin.
Mr O'Loan, who is married to former police ombudsman Nuala O'Loan, said he would be battling with the UUP for the final seat. “There's still all to play for,” he said.
The North Antrim constituency has lost some territory, and around 3,000 nationalist voters, to East Antrim under boundary revisions.
