Not for the first time in Northern Irish politics, last week’s election has created more questions than answers.
There were answers, of course, not least for Sinn Féin, which received a resounding endorsement at the ballot box; more than 250,000 first-preference votes and a successful defence of all its 27 seats made it the largest party and should make its leader in the North, Michelle O’Neill, first minister – as has often been remarked in the past few days, the first time a nationalist will hold this position.
There was an answer, too, to the question of whether Northern Ireland was moving beyond the traditional "orange and green" allegiances. Alliance – a cross-community party that is the only one of the five Executive parties not to designate itself as either unionist or nationalist in the Assembly – more than doubled its representation to take it to 17 seats and make it the third-largest party.
There was an answer, of sorts, to where unionism stands on the Northern Ireland protocol; though the DUP's percentage vote share declined by just under 7 per cent and it lost three seats, it nevertheless retained its position as the largest unionist party, arguably an endorsement of both its stance on the protocol and its resolve not to return to the Executive until the issues around it are addressed to its satisfaction.
Add in the 7.6 per cent who voted for the hardline Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) – which is opposed to the Belfast Agreement and the Assembly – and that is approaching 30 per cent who want the protocol removed, and whose cry will have to be addressed in some shape or form.
And there was an opaque answer on the question of a Border poll. Though Sinn Féin played this down during the campaign, the ante was upped thereafter by party leader Mary Lou McDonald, who told the BBC she believed a vote would happen in the next five years.
In recent days the collective message from senior DUP figures, not least party leader Jeffrey Donaldson himself, is that the protocol is their red line
This notwithstanding the fact that nobody else believes a Border poll will happen any time soon; according to figures published last month by the University of Liverpool/Irish News, only 30 per cent of people in Northern Ireland would vote for a united Ireland “tomorrow” and only 33.4 per cent in 10-15 years’ time.
This is nowhere approaching the majority required to meet the threshold for such a poll; on Sunday the man who will make the call, Northern secretary Brandon Lewis, appeared to rule this out in media interviews, saying that the nationalist vote overall had not grown and the unionist vote remained larger.
Such questions are for another day; more pressing is the matter of whether an Executive – or indeed an Assembly – can be formed. The newly elected MLAs will begin signing the register at the Assembly on Monday ahead of a first meeting of the Assembly later in the week.
The talk is of Thursday as a potential date but, as one Stormont source pointed out, "it's Northern Ireland politics; things can change".
The likely sticking point will come with the nomination of the first and deputy first minister. Unless both are nominated, neither can take office; this means the outgoing ministers will continue in post in shadow form (with the exception of the minister for infrastructure, Nichola Mallon, who lost her seat and must therefore be replaced by an SDLP colleague).
However, their powers are limited – without a first or deputy first minister the Executive cannot sit and there can be no decisions on what are termed significant, controversial or cross-cutting matters.
It seems there will be stalemate; in recent days the collective message from senior DUP figures, not least party leader Jeffrey Donaldson himself, is that the protocol is their red line and they will not go back into the Executive unless it is removed.
This raises the question as to how this might be achieved, not least given the fact this is down to the EU and the UK government, which seems in no mind to help them out. Lewis, after raising the prospect of a solution in the queen’s speech on Tuesday, dashed them again in an ITV interview two days before the election.
They also have another matter to consider. Donaldson, who has just been elected as an MLA in Lagan Valley, is also the constituency’s MP, which is illegal under rules banning “double-jobbing”; he has a week to decide if he will quit his MP seat and return to the Assembly.
All of this will be up to party officers, he said on Friday. “We will consider what we need to do now to get the action that is required from the government. I will be making my decision clear on all of that early next week.”
Compare this to the response of Sinn Féin – or indeed any of the other main parties – which has stressed its MLAs will be ready for work on Monday morning.
Without a first and deputy first minister, the clock will be ticking. Twenty-four weeks is the first deadline; if it is not resolved by then, the Assembly will collapse and the secretary of state will have 12 weeks to call another election – though precisely what this might achieve is another question.
In the interim there will be talking. the Northern secretary will meet the parties on Monday and speak to Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney, though in the North the tendency is for nothing to be resolved quickly and the potential is certainly there for the situation to spiral into a lengthy period of limbo.
In the longer term there are broader questions about the way the Assembly functions – not least in regard to the cross-community veto – which have been brought into sharp focus by the success of the non-aligned Alliance.
The SDLP must consider what went wrong for it at this election and see if it can carve out a space
The political parties, too, will be doing their own soul-searching. The DUP has already publicly emphasised the need for unionists to unite, blaming the fragmenting of its vote for opening the door to a Sinn Féin first minister, but it also has much to do to heal rifts within its own party.
The SDLP must consider what went wrong for it at this election and see if it can carve out a space in a landscape where it is squeezed by Sinn Féin on the one hand and Alliance on the other; as, to a lesser extent, must the UUP.
But in the short term, the only question that matters is whether a government will be formed this week; it appears unlikely there will be a positive answer.