Ulster Unionists were today vowing to mount a legal challenge to Sinn Féin's 53-vote victory in Fermanagh and South Tyrone.
Defeated Ulster Unionist candidate Mr James Cooper claimed there had been after-hours voting in the constituency and refused to accept Ms Michelle Gildernew's knife-edge win which gave Sinn Féin a spectacular victory.
He said: "I do not accept the outcome of this election. There is clear and irrefutable evidence of electoral malpractice. The result of which may well be that my party will be considering the legal implications."
Mr Cooper's bitterness was fuelled by Ms Gildernew's paper-thin victory - her 17,739 votes were just 53 more than the total polled by the Enniskillen solicitor.
But as the Omagh Leisure Centre erupted, the winning Sinn Fein candidate celebrated a historic event.
Arm-in-arm with Mr Martin McGuinness and Mr Pat Doherty - who had earlier secured the Mid Ulster and West Tyrone seats - she declared: "Sinn Fein isunstoppable."
Party president Gerry Adams secured a 20,000 majority in West Belfast - the highest in Northern Ireland's 18 constituencies.
Ms Gildernew recalled that two decades ago Fermanagh and South Tyrone had stunned the world by electing IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands.
"Twenty years ago the people of Fermanagh and South Tyrone stood by the prisoners at their most challenging time," she said. "Today they have stood by Sinn Féin and today they embraced the peace process.
"We are a republican party, all we seek is a united Ireland. Our day has come."
Undaunted, Mr Cooper, who had lost a seat held by retired Ulster Unionist MP MrKen Maginnis for 18 years vented his anger in two direction.
Not only did he claim a polling station in a nationalist area of the constituency had stayed open after the 10 p.m. deadline, but he also attacked the Rev Ian Paisley's anti-Belfast Agreement Democratic Unionists for backing another candidate - Enniskillen bomb victim Mr Jim Dixon.
"The reason the unionists lost this election was because of a so-called unionist party who slunk away from here three hours ago and had not the guts to run their own candidate," he claimed.
PA