SINN FEIN and the DUP looked set to clean up their respective sides of Northern Ireland’s sectarian divide as counting got under way in the snap election yesterday.

After the first round of voting in the single transferable vote election, republican Sinn Fein had taken 27.9 per cent and the Democratic Unionist Party 28.1 per cent.

But with the two erstwhile partners in the executive forswearing a return to a powersharing government, direct rule from Westminster loomed large.

Counting in Thursday’s election started yesterday morning, but the full results are not due until this afternoon.

With the 18 directly elected constituency seats counted and the first of the 72 top-up seats allocated, Sinn Fein had scored 11 and the DUP eight. The Ulster Unionist Party and republican SDLP had one each, trailing the cross-community Alliance Party’s three, while the left-wing People Before Profit had won no seats so far.

Turnout among the 1.2 million electorate was almost 65 per cent — up 10 points on last year’s scheduled election.

The new poll was called after former Sinn Fein leader and deputy first minister Martin McGuinness quit the power-sharing government in January over the renewable heat initiative scandal.

DUP first minister Arlene Foster was blamed for the green energy fiasco set to cost the executive £490 million over 20 years.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) claimed the result vindicated its opposition to Brexit, which only 44 per cent of Northern Ireland’s voters backed.

Ictu assistant general secretary Owen Reidy said: “Regardless of whether the NI executive is resurrected or direct rule is imposed, [Northern Ireland Secretary] James Brokenshire and the Westminster government must respect the will of the people of Northern Ireland.”

But Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) chair Lynda Walker said: “Everything that goes wrong is blamed on leaving the EU. But there are a lot of other issues for working class people, including NHS privatisation which is part of EU policy.”

• CPI national executive member Kerry Fleck and Communist Party of Britain general secretary Rob Griffifths will speak at a public meeting at the Belfast Ramada Encore hotel at 7pm on March 24 public meeting in Belfast on winning unity for a people’s Brexit.