Irish General Election results – who won?
THIS weekend was a crucial one for Irish politics as they held their General Election.
Here's everything you need to know about what happened, how the Irish elections work and what happens next.
Who won the election?
Left-wing nationalist party Sinn Féin has emerged as the most popular party after Ireland's election on Saturday, February 8.
The party secured the most first preference votes, topping the polls in most of the constituencies across the state.
They received 24.5 per cent of the vote share on first preference.
Fianna Fáil got 22.2 per cent and Fine Gael 20.9 per cent.
Why have the results taken so long?
Ireland's elections work differently to ours and don't happen overnight.
Ballot boxes remained unopened until 9am on February 9, 2020, and they have to be counted a number of times because it's a "single, transferable vote" system.
This means they don't just put a cross by the party they want to win, they have to rank them in order of preference.
Ireland is made of 43 constituencies, with each electing either three, four or five candidates with 166 seats for the taking.
To win one of those seats, a candidate must secure a minimum number of votes calculated by the number of people voting.
On Monday, February 10, the second preference votes were being counted.
Is Leo Varadkar still Taoiseach?
As it stands, yes he is, but it wasn't an easy ride for him.
We won't know whether he stays on as Taoiseach until someone can command a majority in the Dail - and there's no promise it will be Mr Varadkar.
What happens now?
That remains unknown for the time being, but none of the three in the running - Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Fein - will have come close to securing enough seats to achieve a majority - so the possibility of a coalition is looking likely.
There are 160 seats in the Dail.
The speaker is automatically re-elected, leaving 159 seats up for grabs.
Therefore the parties need 80 seats for a majority.
The smaller parties like Labour, Social Democrats, solidarity/People Before Profit and the Greens are still yet to be counted as the main parties seek junior coalition partners.
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Mr Varadkar's last government, a minority Fine Gael-led administration that included several independent TDs, was sustained in power through a historic confidence and supply arrangement with Fianna Fáil.
That landmark deal between two parties founded from opposing sides of Ireland's civil war of the 1920s took 70 days to negotiate following the inconclusive 2016 Irish general election.
A new deal cannot be ruled out with Fine Gael supporting a Fianna Fáil-led minority.
The split vote could also force Ireland's two traditional political superpowers to consider a coalition in government together.
On Sunday, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin declined the opportunity to repeat his pre-election pledge never to do business with Sinn Féin.