Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald speaks to members of the media as she canvasses for support in Dublin on February 6, 2020, ahead of the February 8 General Election.

DUBLIN — Ireland's drawn-out election count has failed to produce either a clear winner or any immediately obvious coalition partnerships, based on the latest figures available on Monday morning.

But as fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh order preferences continue to be sorted and totted up across the final few constituencies today, an exit poll released late Saturday has remained largely accurate and the top three parties will finish very close after a tight race, regardless of the outcome in any outstanding seats.

Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are all projected to win more than 20% of the national vote based on results from the roughly one third of constituencies that have completed their counting, and several of the country's leading political scientists have told CNBC that this inconclusive result heralds the end of a two-party system that has effectively dominated the republic for decades.

The two centrist parties that between them have traditionally won the vast majority of the combined vote share, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, have both lost major electoral ground to Sinn Fein, a largely left of center party that has long prioritized reunification of the Irish Republic with the neighboring U.K. nation of Northern Ireland.

Brendan O'Leary, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and former advisor to both British and Irish governments, told CNBC that Sinn Fein's presence in a new government would not automatically put Irish reunification on the agenda during the lifespan of Dublin's new Parliament.

But he pointed to shifting demographics in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland's increasingly resilient economy and the cross-border economic integration encouraged by a Brexit that's proven unpopular in the North as factors that would, taken together, "make it more likely that there will be a peaceful and democratic reunification" before 2030.

Under the terms of a 1998 peace deal in Northern Ireland, known as the Good Friday Agreement, separate referenda in favor of a united Ireland are required both north and then south of the border for the century-old territorial partition to be reconsidered.