The outcome of the NI poll is as unpredictable as it is important, writes Gerry Moriarty
There is a journalistic convention that, come the conclusion of election campaigns, said journalist must metaphorically place him or herself in front of the public and political firing squad and predict the result.
It's a perilous exercise - people just love seeing reporters getting it wrong - and never more so than in this Assembly election, where hundreds of candidates and numerous parties are competing in 18 six-seat constituencies.
The final outcome at the moment is as unpredictable as it is important, although as we steer closer to polling day on November 26th, we might have a better notion of the great Northern public's political mood.
How those 108 seats are shared between the parties will have huge political consequences. Three main battles are being fought: the contest between the Ulster Unionist Party and the DUP; between the SDLP and Sinn Féin; and between those who support and those who oppose the Belfast Agreement.
The third battle is the most critical of all, and it is largely subsumed into the struggle between the DUP and the UUP. If after polling day David Trimble, with the aid of the Progressive Unionist Party, holds the majority of unionist seats then it is just possible that the Assembly and Executive could be re-formed in the relative short term.
Even here there are imponderables. In such a scenario would agreement sceptics Jeffrey Donaldson and David Burnside and Arlene Foster, if elected, go back into government with Sinn Féin, even if somehow there were more transparency on what the IRA recently decommissioned?
If the Rev Ian Paisley and his party candidates take more seats than Mr Trimble - and that assuredly is possible - then devolution almost certainly would remain frozen through to next spring or summer, and even then there is no guarantee of a thaw between hardline unionism and nationalism.
Peter Robinson teases us by saying he wants a renegotiated agreement which unionists and nationalists can accept, yet he won't deal with Sinn Féin. Those positions appear irreconcilable because there can be no deal without Sinn Féin.
Armies with the best artillery and infantry tend to win wars. In this case the respective election machines of Sinn Féin and the DUP will outgun the SDLP and the Ulster Unionist Party. It's perfectly obvious on the stump: Sinn Féin and the DUP canvass in battalions, while the SDLP and the UUP operate in fairly small squads.
In 1992 Sinn Féin was stronger on the ground than the SDLP, yet Dr Joe Hendron still took Mr Gerry Adams's West Belfast seat at Westminster. It was the quiet form of politics overcoming its raucous rival, although now there is no doubt who holds sway in West Belfast.
If the UUP is to remain in the ascendant over the DUP and if the SDLP is to keep close to Sinn Féin, then they must somehow galvanise the moderate normally stay-at-home unionists and nationalists to rise from their comfortable sofas and get to the polling stations on November 26th. This is especially vital for Mr Trimble; middle-class nationalists tend to be pretty politicised. Challenging the apathy factor is a message he will repeat and repeat on the stump.
This will be a bitter contest in the coming three weeks. In fact all the battles, whether inter-nationalist, inter-unionist or between those for and against the agreement, will be fervently contested. Every one knows that the stakes are enormous.