THE SNP in North Ayrshire has said it was open to a coalition with Labour, following the vote which saw a hung vote on the knife-edge authority.
The Conservatives again made massive gains in a council where it had previously been invisible, with seven councillors, up from one in 2012.
Four independent councillors were also elected across the local area.
But both the SNP and Labour finished the day with 11-apiece, with the Nationalists first out of the traps with an alliance offer.
Until the poll the council had been run by Scotland's only Corbynite Labour leader, Joe Cullinane, also the country's youngest.
He took control last August when the SNP failed to win a by-election where First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's father Robin was the candidate.
Mr Sturgeon failed again in his attempt to get elected to the council where his wife had been provost for four years.
The other major scalp in the area was the veteran David O'Neill, the president of local government umbrella body Cosla and the country's leading councillor.
But SNP group leader Marie Burns said: "We’re pleased to get a strong showing for the SNP, with 11 of our candidates returned, and winning the popular vote. We’re disappointed for our colleagues who didn’t quite make it over the line, but our thanks go to the voters who continue to place their trust in us.
“We’ve been clear from the outset that there will be no coalition with the Tories and their hard-right policies. That view seems to be shared by the vast majority of voters in North Ayrshire.
"We’ll see over the coming days if there is a deal to be made that will take forward a positive programme for service delivery in North Ayrshire. Our door is open, and we are happy to speak to anyone who is ready to have a discussion on those terms. If our Labour colleagues feel the same way we are open to discussions.”
Mr Cullinane said: “We need to have a conversation with the (council) chief executive about the process that we’ll go through to form an administration.
“We will meet over the weekend as a group and have a discussion about the result and what that means in terms of the Labour party taking things forward.”
The chief of the area's new Tory contingent has ruled out working alongside the SNP but did not dismiss the idea of a coalition with other parties.
Richard Wilkinson said: “I think until we’ve had time to digest the results and consider which way the council’s going to go. But I can rule out a coalition with the SNP.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here