AT TIMES LIKE this, there are never enough tea leaves in the cups when we try to read the mood and the direction of election campaigns.

Voting in the Assembly election in Northern Ireland is on May 5; the counting will decide Stormont’s future.

It stands and falls. That is its record through the years since the historic political agreement on Good Friday 1998; a near quarter of a century of effort to find its place and its purpose on the political landscape.

Alongside the usual chat of “great responses” on the doorsteps, there is also talk of “apathy” and the question: “What’s the point?”

The latter reflects the tiredness associated with the dysfunctional nature of politics here, too often broken, including throughout much of its last five-year term.

After a three-year absence, the two governments – UK and Irish – saved Stormont in 2020.

But it is struggling again, just about staggered through to this election and, afterwards, yet another negotiation will be needed.

The party numbers will determine the difficulty of that next rescue mission.

Often when our politics is broken, we see the street plays that are a reminder of the old Northern Ireland.

Egos of yesteryear

The news from Derry on Easter Monday was scripted around the images of masked and marching men and women, attacks on the police and arrests.

Some of the egos of yesteryear still crying out for attention. A shout from dissident republicans to remember them.

In the same way, a month or so ago, other players from the past, this time in the loyalist community, used a hoax bomb to create a scene that forced Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney to abandon a speech in north Belfast.

Coveney had a major part alongside then Northern Ireland Secretary of State Julian Smith in that long negotiation that gave Stormont another chance with the New Decade-New Approach agreement a little over two years ago.

In what I have just outlined, some see a continuing tug-of-war in Northern Ireland, and the rope that pulls between its past and present.

Happenings such as those in Derry and in north Belfast become exaggerated, because they are no longer the ‘normal’ of this place; but rather an occasional intrusion into the peace that cause both shock and headlines.

We are not back in the conflict years, but on that long road away from the wars of the past.

This is the backdrop to the next Stormont election and the voting and the counting that will determine what happens next; an election that could change everything or change nothing.

Part of the unionist script is written around the post-Brexit Irish Sea Border (the much talked about Protocol) that has changed trading arrangements between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

More than that it has developed into a narrative that is a battle for the Union, a battle to stop a border poll and a battle to prevent Sinn Fein holding the position of First Minister at Stormont.

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has described “a battle for Northern Ireland” and this election being the most important for a generation.

At Easter, Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald spoke of an election that is about “advancing real change”.

“It is about the future and the type of Ireland we want to live in.”

McDonald said the people will decide who occupies the office of First Minister.

Earthquake politics

The polls suggest that Sinn Fein could emerge as the largest party.

If they do, that will be another earthquake moment in the politics of this place.

Writing recently in the Belfast Telegraph, Jon Tonge, Professor of Politics at the University of Liverpool, said: “Sinn Fein becoming the largest party at Stormont would be a seismic day in Northern Ireland’s history.”

He is right. For unionists it would represent losing something more, having already lost their overall majority at Stormont in 2017, their second seat in the European election of 2019 and no longer holding the majority of Northern Ireland seats at Westminster following the 2019 UK General Election.

These are the tremors and the trauma of change; that sense of losing further underscored in the decisions and agreements linked to the Sea Border that turned the Northern Ireland Centenary year of 2021 into something of a crisis.

That mood is obvious as we approach the May 5 polling day. We hear the anger on the platforms and in the Sea Border protests that are a loud part of our politics in the here-and-now.

There is a sense of betrayal.

We will watch not just the DUP and Sinn Fein in this election, but its many other interesting parts.

The veteran political editor Ken Reid describes an election that “could change the nature of politics here”.

Speaking to people, he believes the cost of living crisis is the real issue on the doorsteps.

So, there is much to watch for. Like the performance of Alliance and those designated as ‘other’, including the Greens and People Before Profit – parties that in a series of elections have emerged as a more significant third pillar in our politics.

Watch to see if the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP can hold on to or build on what they have got.

Watch for the results of Jim Allister and the TUV in this battle against the Protocol.

And watch how the independents perform in the mood and atmosphere of this election.

The voting and counting could create another limbo, another long road back to Stormont, or it could be the start of the next big conversation.

If Stormont cannot be fixed, then what is next?

Brian Rowan is a journalist and author. He is a former BBC correspondent in Belfast. Brian is the author of several books on Northern Ireland’s peace process. His book, Political Purgatory – The Battle to Save Stormont and the Play for a New Ireland is out now at Merrion Press.