In a measure of how far Thursday's presidential election in Sri Lanka has become a knife-edge contest, diplomats here have been checking the rules in case of a dead heat: according to a 1981 act, the rival candidates would draw lots to settle on a winner.
Until very recently, few would have predicted such uncertainty, not least President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who called the election two years early, confident that - despite his waning popularity - he could win an unprecedented third term.
The worry for investors is that the political and policy outlook will remain shaky even after a victor has been declared.
"Whoever loses ... will be presented with an opportunity to regroup in the parliamentary elections that could come within a few months of the presidential polls. And whoever wins will face the challenge of mending a polity in urgent need of being brought together," Alan Keenan, of the International Crisis Group, wrote in a blog this week.
"In short, Sri Lankan politics are almost certain to remain volatile in the months ahead."
Western nations are quietly keeping their fingers crossed that Rajapaksa's trusted astrologer, who advised the president on the most auspicious moment to go to the nation, got it wrong.
Diplomats believe that Mithripala Sirisena, once the president's health minister and now his audacious challenger, could bring a thaw in relations and trade with Europe and the United States that frosted over as Rajapaksa rebuffed Western lectures on human rights and embraced China.
They hope, too, that Sirisena will cool tensions between the country's Sinhala Buddhist majority and its minorities. Not only is he the common candidate of the usually fractious opposition, he also enjoys the support of the main party representing ethnic Tamils as well as a Muslim party that deserted Rajapaksa.
The president, who built his popularity on winning the 26-year civil war with Tamil separatists in 2009, has sought to paint his rival as a national traitor.
But while Sirisena, a Sinhala Buddhist, may be more inclined to reconciliation with the Tamils than Rajapaksa, he has made it clear that he will be just as resistant to calls for an international probe into possible war crimes by government forces during the horrific climax of the conflict.
