In the end, the minor parties were the king-makers in the Queensland election, just not in quite the way they had expected.

A fraught election campaign ended with Labor ahead, but still short of a majority government.

Preferences from One Nation and the Greens helped Labor to – as of Saturday night – a 44- to 38-seat lead over the LNP, yet neither minor party had won a seat for themselves by the time counting was halted for the night.

One Nation lost its sole Queensland MP, the LNP-defector Steve Dickson, as well as failing in its bid to get Malcolm Roberts elected to the state parliament, and ended the night by locking the media out of its campaign party on the Sunshine Coast.

One Nation had expected to be king-makers in the Queensland election. But the flock of voters, predicted by party leader Pauline Hanson – the most visible element of the the party’s campaign – and her chief adviser, James Ashby, failed to materialise in the numbers the party had hoped for.

Instead, One Nation finished the night with no seats, although it remained in contention for at least two, still well short of the 11 or more the party had predicted at the beginning of the campaign.

The Greens also failed in their bid to topple deputy premier Jackie Trad from South Brisbane, largely thanks to LNP preferences, but remained in contention for the inner Brisbane LNP seat of Maiwar.

That had been considered safe for the shadow treasurer, Scott Emerson, until a boundary shift turned it “teal”, to quote some campaigners.

The result left the caretaker premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, “confident” of a majority victory, but the Labor leader stopped short of declaring a win.

“Tonight, we are close to the peak, but we are not quite there, and we will not get there tonight,” Palaszczuk said. “But I remain confident we will be able to form a majority Labor government once all the votes are counted.”

While it was clear was Palaszczuk remained in the box seat to form government on Saturday night, there was still a chance that could only come with the help of a minor party, such as the Katter’s, which on Friday she had ruled out because of its desire to relax gun laws.

The LNP leader, Tim Nicholls, while acknowledging he had not done enough to win government, seized on Palaszczuk’s vow of “no deals” in the event of a hung parliament, questioning whether she would keep her word.

The LNP suffered a 7% swing against it, as counting wrapped up on Saturday night, despite a campaign from both major parties that included very limited policy announcements, and no clear differential, other than the One Nation deal.

Palaszczuk remained committed to no deals with One Nation on Saturday night, but did not mention any other party.

Nicholls attempted to remain upbeat, telling the LNP faithful Queenslanders had voted to “shake things up” but the bloodletting had already begun behind the scenes, as LNP strategists examined what had gone wrong.

Some of those fingers were pointed at the federal sphere, with blame being directed at “disfunction within the Turnbull government”, while other suggested not enough time had passed since the Newman government.

As counting finished on Saturday night, a result was not expected to be known for several days or more, with preferences and postal votes expected to decide the dozen or so seats still in contention.

In 2015 it took almost three weeks for Labor to form government.

“It is not the result we wanted, but it is not too bad, considering,” a Labor strategist told Guardian Australia. “All things considered, it could have been a lot worse.”