Mr David Trimble has seen off his critics, once again. In the most serious challenge to the policy direction in which he has led the Ulster Unionist Party, he has beaten Mr Jeffrey Donaldson and survived to ensure that the Belfast Agreement remains the road map for the immediate future in Northern Ireland.
The defining moment for unionism is not the one that Mr Donaldson would have wanted.
For all of that, the closeness of the vote at the Ulster Unionist Council meeting on Mr Donaldson's motion rejecting the British-Irish Joint Declaration as the basis for restoring the Assembly leaves little room for complacency about the UUP's continued commitment to the Agreement. Mr Trimble's margin of victory was 440 votes to 369. This head count, at best, presents a window of opportunity which will close quickly if the IRA does not sign up with clarity to the Declaration's demand for an end to all paramilitary activity and closure of the conflict.
The vote sends the clearest signal - if that were required - that Mr Trimble is committed wholeheartedly to the implementation of the Agreement in all of its aspects. He put his leadership on the line for it. And, unlike some of the 11 previous challenges to his authority and policy-making power within the UUC, he seems to have avoided the pitfall of setting up new deadlines and demands which could return to haunt him this time.
Mr Donaldson is now considering his position. He put it up to the UUC in unambiguous terms that the defining question facing unionists was whether they would choose a principled or a tactical approach to the Agreement. He got his answer. Some 54 per cent of his colleagues held their nerve. It now appears that if he leaves the party - either to become an Independent or join with the Democratic Unionist Party - he may do so alone. Mr Trimble has called on him to remain within the UUP.
The realpolitik, nonetheless, is that Monday night's vote demonstrates that a majority of the unionist electorate - taking 46 per cent within the UUC, and the DUP - are anti-Agreement. They could have a majority after the next Assembly elections. Mr Trimble conceded that there were a "significant number of people who are out of sympathy with this process and with the policies that are being adopted". So the essence of the political problem facing Mr Trimble has not changed.
In these circumstances, it behoves the two government leaders, Mr Ahern and Mr Blair, to grasp the opportunity presented by Mr Trimble's victory over Mr Donaldson. When they meet at the EU summit in Thessaloniki in coming days, they should move to win back the initiative. It is clear, following Monday's vote, that Sinn Féin must exert its influence on the IRA to deliver an agreed Joint Declaration to Mr Trimble. It is more imperative now that he is in a position to deliver on decommissioning and devolution going into the battleground for the Assembly elections.