The people of Northern Ireland have spoken and it will take some days to assess the full implications of what they had to say. They did not inflict the seismic shocks on the political establishment on the nationalist side that had been predicted in the run-up to the elections.
They did not abandon the middle ground of nationalism. They punished the Ulster Unionist Party and supported the harder line of the Democratic Unionist Party. And in a new development in the politics of the North, they voted strategically and tactically to produce a workable result.
The biggest surprise in the elections was the scale of the defeat inflicted on the leader of the UUP, Mr David Trimble, in his Upper Bann constituency. Politics is a cruel trade. Mr Trimble made an enormous contribution to the peace process and the negotiation and implementation of the Belfast Agreement in the last decade. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He will earn his place in the history books. Yet, Mr Trimble's political future must be doubtful now as it rests in the hands of a much-diminished party with only one MP.
The great survivor was Mr Mark Durkan, leader of the SDLP, who comfortably saw off the challenge from Sinn Féin in Derry. Both he and his party had their obituaries written many times during the campaign. It is a measure of the resilience of moderate nationalism throughout the most difficult decades in recent history that they were rewarded for their stability and service. Dr Alisdair McDonnell's election in Belfast was another boost for the party.
There is no gainsaying, however, that the potential for political advance in the North will be determined by the dominance of the DUP. They received support from a majority of unionists on this occasion to win the majority of seats in Westminster. They speak for unionism and its future.They were probably assisted during the campaign by Dr Paisley's decision not to sign up to a deal with Sinn Féin last year, since that position was vindicated by the IRA's involvement in the Northern Bank robbery and the murder of Robert McCartney earlier this year.
For all of that, however, Sinn Féin continued its onward march but it did not obliterate the SDLP. It made substantial advances again in constituencies but it did not succeed, as feared, in fashioning Northern Ireland into a two-party state. It is to be hoped that Mr Gerry Adams's call to members of the IRA to end all paramilitary activity will be followed through, now that the election is over.
Dire predictions were made during the campaign that there would be no political advance in the North for a very long time. There would be no voices other than the extremes. It must be a cause for some hope that this has not happened.
There is still a moderate core in politics. And it will fall to that core, as much as the DUP and Sinn Féin, to ensure that real and genuine attempts are made to implement the Belfast Agreement. That will be difficult given the number of anti-agreement MPs now.