Ireland's drawn-out election count has failed to produce either a clear winner or any immediately obvious coalition partnerships, based on the latest figures available on Monday morning.
But as fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh order preferences continue to be sorted and totted up across the final few constituencies today, an exit poll released late Saturday has remained largely accurate and the top three parties will finish very close after a tight race, regardless of the outcome in any outstanding seats.
Brendan O'Leary, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and former advisor to both British and Irish governments, told CNBC that Sinn Fein's presence in a new government would not automatically put Irish reunification on the agenda during the lifespan of Dublin's new Parliament.
In a sign of the political upheaval that Saturday's vote has generated elsewhere, Leo Varadkar, the current prime minister, or Taoiseach, to use his Irish title, had to struggle awkwardly through multiple rounds of vote preference counts, before he could confirm his own personal re-election in his West Dublin constituency behind Sinn Fein's top candidate.
"It's unprecedented in many ways," says O'Leary, who has studied the dynamics of power-sharing in Ireland for decades. "There's plenty of experience in coalition government, some experience in minority government, but no experience of equally matched parties." "There are deep and persistent problems" when it comes to Ireland's structural spending priorities, according to John O'Brennan, professor of European integration at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. He says the Fine Gael-led coalition government under Varadkar has struggled to combat the legacy of austerity, particularly among voters living in or close to the capital Dublin.
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