The Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein has won the largest number of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly for the first time.
With almost all votes counted, Sinn Fein has secured 27 of the assembly’s 90 seats.
The Democratic Unionist Party has 24.
The historic win means Sinn Fein is entitled to the post of first minister in Belfast for the first time since Northern Ireland was founded as a Protestant-majority state in 1921.
It’s a milestone for a party long linked to the Irish Republican Army, a paramilitary group that used bombs and bullets to try to take Northern Ireland out of UK rule during decades of violence involving Irish republican militants, Protestant Loyalist paramilitaries and the UK army and police.
"Today ushers in a new era," Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle O’Neill said on Saturday (local time).
"Irrespective of religious, political or social backgrounds, my commitment is to make politics work."
Sinn Fein seeks a united Ireland.
But the party kept unification out of the spotlight this year during a campaign that was dominated by more immediate concerns, namely the skyrocketing cost of living.
The centrist Alliance Party, which doesn’t identify as either nationalist or unionist, was the other big winner of this year's local UK election, which was held on Thursday.
Power-sharing system
Ms O'Neill stressed that it was imperative for Northern Ireland's politicians to come together to form an Executive -- the devolved government of Northern Ireland -- next week.
If none can be formed within six months, the administration will collapse, triggering a new election and more uncertainty.
There is "space in this state for everyone, all of us together", O’Neill said.
"There is an urgency to restore an Executive and start putting money back in people’s pockets, to start to fix the health service. The people can't wait."
Under a mandatory power-sharing system created by the 1998 peace agreement that ended decades of Catholic-Protestant conflict, the jobs of first minister and deputy first minister are split between the biggest unionist party and the largest nationalist one.
Both posts must be filled for a government to function, but the Democratic Unionist Party has suggested it might not serve under a Sinn Fein first minister.
The DUP has also said it would refuse to join a new government unless there are major changes to post-Brexit border arrangements, known as the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Those post-Brexit rules, which took effect after Britain left the European Union, have imposed customs and border checks on some goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.
The arrangement was designed to keep an open border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland, a key pillar of the peace process.
But it angered many unionists, who maintain that the new checks have created a barrier between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK that undermines their British identity.
AP
