DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has refused to confirm if his party will support the election of a new Assembly speaker when MLAs meet at Stormont on Friday.
On Wednesday morning, Sir Jeffrey said his party has not yet decided if it will support the move.
Friday's meeting is due to be the first order of business following last week's historic Assembly election.
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It placed Sinn Fein as the largest party in Northern Ireland for the first time and saw Alliance returning a record 17 MLAs to the Assembly.
The SDLP and UUP faced losses, with a reduction of four seats and one seat respectively.
The Green Party lost its two MLAs, including leader Clare Bailey.
Despite seeing a surge in vote share, the TUV returned one MLA, its leader Jim Allister.
Sinn Fein's success means the party is entitled to the role of first minister but that depends on the DUP nominating a deputy.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has confirmed his party won't nominate ministers to the new Executive and will hold this position until their concerns around the Northern Ireland Protocol are addressed.
Despite the uncertainty, however, new MLAs gathered at Stormont on Monday for an induction day.
The election of a new speaker needs cross-community support from both Unionist and Nationalist members.
A new speaker would mean Assembly business could take place for up to six months, even in the absence of a functioning Executive.
"We will be there on Friday. Our members will be there to sign the roll. We will make a decision as to how we proceed. We'll get the group together and we'll determine how best to take this forward," Sir Jeffrey told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster.
"I'm waiting to see what the Government has to say. So, that is the priority right now, to ensure that what the Government say is moving us in the right direction.
"I'm simply saying that we will need to make a decision on that. That's one of the decisions we've got to make."
Speaking after a meeting with Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney later on Wednesday, Michelle O'Neill criticised the DUP's suggestion and said the Speaker has to be elected.
She said: "What we need to see is the positions filled - First Minister, deputy First Minister, all the ministerial positions filled - and let's get down to doing business.
"I don't think it is good enough. It is not good enough for the people here that the DUP is holding society to ransom, punishing society, preventing the establishment of a Speaker and an Executive to actually respond to the things people are worried about.
"I don't think it is acceptable the position Jeffrey Donaldson has articulated today."
Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie said as a bare minimum a new Assembly speaker should be nominated.
"It will be serious (if no speaker is nominated on Friday) because up until now, we've been able to do some form of business because the Assembly could meet, we could do stuff, we could hold the ministers to account for the next 24 weeks because question time would continue with them and we would know what was happening in regards to the individual departments," he said.
"If we don't have a Speaker, we don't have any of that. We will have no work being done whatsoever and that is not acceptable. We cannot be standing for election and then getting paid to do a job and then not being allowed to do it.
"So we, at least, as a bare minimum, need to nominate a speaker on Friday so that we can move forward, at least in part. We certainly, as a party, will be nominating someone to be a Speaker."
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