Why the Republicans are struggling to pick a new House speaker

It's been 100 years since American politics has faced a comparable mess.

The engine room of the American democratic machine is rudderless, unable to choose its leader - the speaker of the House.

The past two days of ballot chaos, where multiple votes to choose the speaker have failed to produce a winner, will be repeated until one person can muster a majority.

But don't assume this just represents the messy familiarity of democracy. The fight, the division and the bitterness is internal; within one party - a fractured and dysfunctional Republican Party.

What's the background?

In November's midterm elections, President Joe Biden's Democratic Party retained control of the Senate but lost control of the House of Representatives.

The majority and the power in the House was handed to the Republicans. Democratic speaker Nancy Pelosi stepped down and made way for a Republican replacement. The assumption was that it would be Kevin McCarthy.

But the midterm "red wave" - a landslide to the Republican Party because of the perceived weakness of Mr Biden's Democrats didn't play out. Defying conventional wisdom on how a serving president's party performs in the midterms, the Democrats retained the Senate and only lost the House by a narrow margin.

So why are the Republicans struggling to choose a leader?

Two reasons: first because the party is splintered into different factions - ranging from those far to the right to the more centrist caucus.

And second, because they only have a narrow majority making the arithmetic tricky for Kevin McCarthy who needs 218 votes from a Republican total of 222 seats.

Why does it matter?

In short, without a speaker, the House can't start the business of governing and legislation. It must continue to hold speaker ballots until a candidate wins. Both camps - the OK (Only Kevin) camp and the Never Kevin camp seem as entrenched as each other.

Looking to history again - back in 1856, just before the US Civil War, it took two months and 133 ballots to find a speaker.

What's the issue with Kevin McCarthy?

Mr McCarthy seemed confident he would muster the votes, yet his battle has got harder with the opposition to him growing. There were originally five die-hard "never Kevin" Republicans. But in Tuesday's votes, the number grew to 14, then 19 and then 20.

In a farcical situation, a number of Republicans voted for their colleague Jim Jordan, who then voted for Mr McCarthy and stated he didn't want the speakership.

Perhaps even more farcical, and deeply worrying for the Republican Party, the Democratic Party representative Hakeem Jeffries received more votes than Mr McCarthy in the first three votes.

"We may have a battle on the floor," Kevin McCarthy told reporters after a humiliating day. "But the battle is for the conference and the country, and that's fine with me."

In Wednesday's fourth and fifth ballots, 20 Republi