Hard-line Unionists kick-off Assembly campaign

Ian Paisley’s hard-line Democratic Unionist Party was today setting out to replace the Ulster Unionists as the largest pro-union party with the official launch of its Assembly election campaign today.

The campaign, which will centre on demands for a renegotiation of the Good Friday Agreement, will be launched by DUP leader Ian Paisley and deputy leader Peter Robinson in front of an audience of several hundred supporters at the Odyssey Centre.

Meanwhile the nationalist Social Democratic Party will kick off its campaign with the launch of its Party Political Broadcast.

As all the parties switch into election mode, the two governments are under pressure to declare whether the poll will go ahead as planned on May 29.

Party nominations for the 108 seats are due to close on May 6, leaving Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern to make a judgment call possibly no later than tomorrow.

The party campaigns for the Stormont Parliament begin against a background of uncertainty, with Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble vowing to block any restoration of the powersharing Executive in the absence of a declaration from the IRA that its terrorist campaign is at an end.

Despite an intervention from Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, attempting to clarify the IRA’s statement to the two governments, Mr Blair said republicans still had questions to answer on whether it spelled an end to terrorist activity.

Efforts to bring about a resolution to the problems continued last night with Mr Adams holding talks by telephone with both Mr Blair and Mr Ahern.

Addressing party activists at a republican ex-prisoners club in west Belfast, he insisted that a deal was still doable.

But he said the problem lay with the British government being “in hock” to unionists.

He accused unionists of being scared of change and of being shaken up by his explanation of the IRA statement at Stormont on Sunday.

“The leaders of unionism were content for a week or two because they didn’t have to do anything,” he said.

“Then unionists became agitated because we the people who wanted change moved to accommodate, to open up the possibility of that change happening sooner rather than later.”