CANADA: Looking for historical precedents in an unprecedented election, Canadians have had to go back to 1885 and the dominance of the British House of Commons by Charles Stewart Parnell to find the closest parallel to the idea of a separatist party underpinning a government.
Just as Parnell secured promises of greater self-government in return for supporting William Gladstone, so Mr Gilles Duceppe, the leader of the Québec separatist party, Bloc Québécois, is poised for the first time to wrest concessions from the centre by entering government with one of Canada's two mainstream parties.
As Canadians went to the polls in a snap general election yesterday, it was nearly certain that neither the Liberal Party, which has governed Canada for 11 years, nor the Western-based Conservative Party, would be able to form a majority government in the 308-seat parliament.
Mr Duceppe has set aside his goal of separation temporarily in an effort to attract non-francophone votes, and he insists that the election will not decide Québec's future.
However, just as Parnell used his power to obtain a Home Rule bill, Mr Duceppe sees Ottawa as a second front in the struggle for independence, and another referendum on Québec sovereignty is possible in the next five years.
As the count is completed in ridings across Canada this morning, the two main parties know that any coalition with the Quebec party will come at the cost of diminishing powers for the federal government in Ottawa.
Both the Liberal Party leader, outgoing Prime Minister Mr Paul Martin, and Conservative leader, Mr Stephen Harper, will most likely try to lure Bloc Québécois into a minority government by transferring some federal spending power to Quebec and other provinces.
With its leftist agenda, the Quebec party could help shape Canada's social and economic policies for the coming years, especially if it forms an alliance with the Conservatives - a more likely outcome given the bad blood between the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois.
Mr Duceppe (56), a former Maoist party member, says his support for the Kyoto Accord, federal gun laws, abortion rights and same-sex marriage - all opposed to some degree by Mr Harper's party - is non-negotiable.
The shadow of the United States has been cast over the election, with the right-wing Conservatives inclined to favour Bush-like policies of lower taxes and increased defence spending, and ready to join a US missile defence programme, but these impulses would also be curtailed in a minority government.
Mr Martin has campaigned against the Conservatives on the grounds that they would bring Canadians into US military alliances, whereas he and his predecessor, Jean Chrétien, kept Canada out of Iraq.
There has been direct American interference in Canada's election - in the shape of Michael Moore, maker of the hit documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, who has called on Canadians not to vote Mr Harper into office, as has independent American presidential candidate Ralph Nader.
They favour the small left-wing New Democratic Party, which hopes that today it, rather than Bloc Québécois, will form a minority government.
Liberal Party support dramatically collapsed this year in the wake of corruption scandals which showed CAN$100 million (€61 million) in government funds had found its way to firms with close Liberal ties, resulting in the current four-party free-for-all, and the expectation of the first minority government since the short-lived one of 1979.