IT'S like watching a child learning to walk. The steps are unsure, experimental, hesitant but after a while, the wee uns discover they like it.
So it is with members of the tiny fringe loyalist parties in the Northern Ireland elections. Both the Progressive Unionist Party and the Ulster Democratic Party have emerged from a shadowy world where power grew out of the barrel of a gun. Now they're going door to door with stickers and leaflets. They lack the smooth professionalism of the big party machines North and South, but they're learning fast.
There is an urgency and sense of mission about them. The urgency comes from knowing they must "do the business" on May 30th. The election system, many believe, has been geared to ensure the PUP and UDP are elected to the forum but nothing is certain in this world.
Spokesmen for the two parties are reluctant to predict how many seats they will win. "Totally unquantifiable," is the stock response. Independent observers predict the maximum number of seats they will take in the forum at six out of a total of 110: two for the PUP in the constituencies and two each for the PUP and UDP from the "top up" regional list.
The sense of mission derives from a desire to tell the world they have been "had". The message is still being articulated but it goes something like this: we filled the graveyards and the prisons, took the risks and did the terrible deeds but it was the upper middle class unionists who reaped the benefits.
The message is a mixture of class politics, in an early stage of evolution, and nascent pacifism. We bore the brunt of the war, they are saying the republicans struck at our areas and our people, not the Malone Road. If the war resumes, we are the ones who will suffer.
There is one key difference between the nationalist and unionist communities which militates politically against the fringe loyalists. Historically, a sizeable minority of nationalists has been prepared to vote for Sinn Fein, despite or perhaps because it is the political wing of a paramilitary organisation. Not so with the vast majority of unionists.
Observers say the PUP's David Ervine has the best chance of winning one of the 90 seats elected from the constituencies. Ervine is running in East Belfast; his PUP colleagues Hugh Smyth in West Belfast and Billy Hutchinson in North Belfast are also seen as having a chance of a seat.
Mr Ervine himself is not making any predictions about seats: "If every pat on the back is translated into a vote, we'll do very well, but that's not the way the world works." He describes the election as "uncharted waters" for the PUP. "Goodness knows where it will take us"
He explains the key difference between the PUP and the traditional unionist parties: "We want to embrace change because there is little value in remaining in the trenches out of the trenches and let's negotiate a decent future for us all."
The elections had come "sooner than we would have liked, but we're now into it and we'll give it our best shot". Commentators of ten say the PUP is "close to the thinking" of the Ulster Volunteer Force and there will be some surprise at his assertion that only 3 per cent of the PUP membership have a paramilitary past. Who then are the remaining 97 per cent?
"Just ordinary people who like the idea of the socialist message, who perhaps feel that change is our friend, who feel they have been badly represented in the past and that the definition of unionism we give, suits them better than the one that constantly has alienated them." He says there are over 500 members in a dozen branches "all over" Northern Ireland.
Asked how he would react if the party failed to win any seats at all, he replies: "That's democracy, but I do feel that it would be much, much better if we have inclusive politics which has the former protagonists at least represented at the table, whether it be by Sinn Fein on the republican side or ourselves on the loyalist side."
But he adds: "Be under no illusion, the Progressive Unionist Party, whatever the result on the 30th of May, is in for the long haul." But he expects both fringe loyalist groupings will be there.
David Adams, press officer of the UDP, is upbeat about his party's campaign. "It's going very well," he says. "The worst reaction we're getting is simple apathy but there has been no adverse reaction from anyone.
The party is running candidates in all 18 constituencies as well as on the "top up" list which gives two seats to each of the 10 parties who poll highest. But he refuses to venture a prediction on the party's likely performance.
Although the PUP and UDP have a great deal in common, he says his party is not as "overtly socialist" as the PUP. The UDP is "mostly an urban party" concentrated in greater Belfast but with branches also in Coleraine, Derry and Ballymena.
If the UDP did not win any seats at all, it would be "an absolute catastrophe for the whole process", he says. "Let's be honest, except for the loyalists maintaining their ceasefire, there would not be a peace process at this time". It would be "extremely disappointing" if loyalists were not fully involved in negotiations about a final settlement. "And I think the people of Northern Ireland will recognise that fact?"
David Adams makes no bones about the fact that he was a member of the Ulster Defence Association, and the Troubles have laid their mark on his life. "One of my best friends, my party chairman, Ray Smallwoods, was murdered a month and a half before the IPA called their ceasefire. I have many friends and relations who are in the Maze prison or in graveyards because of the conflict."
Asked if this made it hard for him to sit down at the negotiating table with Sinn Fein, he replies: "We can't get caught up in a catch 22 situation of revenge be getting revenge, because that's a never ending cycle."
Now aged 43, he doesn't want his three children to be caught up in a new wave of the Troubles. "If nothing else, I want to be able to sit down at some stage and say, well, at least I tried my best to bring a resolution of this conflict".
A similar attitude is expressed by his running mate in the South Belfast constituency, Pauline Gilmore. She was only 18 when her boyfriend, a Queen's University law lecturer and unionist councillor Edgar Graham, was shot dead by the IRA in 1983.
"A settlement can be reached if people are prepared to work together, that is what Northern Ireland needs to look to, working together, not working apart."
Mr Adams and Ms Gilmore received a warm reception as they canvassed a network of strongly loyalist streets off the Donegall Road earlier this week. The only negative reaction came from an elderly man who told the UDP canvassers at his door: "I've backed Paisley all my life . . . if he dies, I'll vote for you."