MR Gerry Adams has renewed his pressure on the SDLP to side with Sinn Fein in boycotting the May 30th election, provoking SDLP suspicion that he is engaging in gamesmanship.
The British government would have to find new avenues to allow nationalists into all-party talks should Sinn Fein and the SDLP boycott the election and the forum, the Sinn Fein president said in Dublin yesterday.
Mr Adams added that the election has no "real constructive role to play" in helping facilitate a peace settlement. He said that nationalists and republicans have "noted with interest" the SDLP's opposition to the proposal for a unionist forum
One senior SDLP source, however, was cynical in his response to Mr Adams's urgings. He suggested that this could be the first round of Sinn Fein election manoeuvrings to try to gain advantage over the SDLP.
Meanwhile, the Northern Ireland Office has conceded it made an error in excluding the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) from the list of parties contesting the election.
But there is still no place for the INLA's political wing, the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP).
Mr Adams said that there was a widespread apprehension among nationalists that the proposed elections and forum "are deliberate contrivance by the British, as part of a unionist agenda, to distract from the urgent need for a commencement of a proper process of inclusive negotiations".
Mr Adams said: "The truth is that if there is merit in rejecting the Stormont forum, and there is and if the elective process will not after party mandates but will fulfil unionist objectives, as Mr Paisley and Mr Trimble and others seek to turn back the clock to 1912; then surely the SDLP and Sinn Fein should simply ignore the election and the forum altogether.
"In that event, without nationalist participation in either the forum or the elective process, both governments, but particularly the British Government which has erected these obstacles to progress, would have to create a new and more constructive avenue into all-party talks."
The SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, who is attending a conference in Nice, was unavailable for comment while the deputy leader, Mr Seamus Mallon, is in hospital in London.
A senior party source, however was cynical of the motives behind Mr Adams's statement. "We have regular meetings with Sinn Fein, and John Hume meets Mr Adams from time to time, so I can't help but be suspicious that this is a bit of early Sinn Fein electioneering," he said.
"I suspect that Sinn Fein is trying to create the conditions where people might blame the SDLP, rather than Sinn Fein, if both parties decide to contest, what is for us a very unpopular election," the SDLP source added.
The SDLP will decide whether to contest the election when it knows the final shape of the election legislation next week, he added.
Meanwhile, the NIO has apologised for excluding the Communist Party of Ireland from the list of parties and candidates eligible to contest the election. An amendment will be allowed ensuring the CPI's entry into the election, an NIO spokesman said.
The IRSP, which did not reply to the initial election consultation document, is still out in the cold, however, and is not among the list of contestants.
Mr Kevin McQuillan, an IRSP spokesman, yesterday described Mr Adams's call for nationalists to ignore the election as "realistic commonsense".
It was also learned yesterday that the Conservative Party's central office has lifted its recommendation that Northern Ireland Tories not compete in the election. The party hopes to put up over 20 candidates in several of the 18 constituencies.
