THE leaderships of the SDLP and Sinn Fein are expected to meet shortly to discuss the May 30th election in Northern Ireland.
Speaking during his party's ardfheis in Dublin yesterday, Mr Martin McGuinness, a member of Sinn Fein's ardchomhairle, said that his preference was for non participation in both the election and the proposed elected body. "We need to put this to the SDLP in an effort to seek their support for such an approach. We can do this in the context of ensuring that our electorate is not isolated," he said.
The SDLP MP for West Belfast, Dr Joe Hendron, said that the party would probably meet within the next 10 days to determine its strategy on the election.
The party's deputy leader, Mr Seamus Mallon, said that the SDLP was considering whether it would take part in the election. "We make up our own minds as a political party called the SDLP. We decide our own tactics as a political party called the SDLP and we fight elections as a political party called the SDLP, and we will go into negotiations, as we have done for the past 25 years, on the strength of our own mandate and the integrity of our own negotiating position, and nothing else," said Mr Mallon.
Sinn Fein delegates overwhelmingly endorsed an emergency motion from the party's ardchomhairle which mandated them to "take the necessary steps to ensure the voice of our electorate is not isolated".
It is understood that, if the SDLP decides to contest the election, Sinn Fein will also pursue this course.
Insisting that Sinn Fein was not putting any pressure on the SDLP to adopt a particular approach, Mr McGuinness said that he believed there were indications that the SDLP was prepared to contest the election. However, even if Sinn Fein decided to do likewise, the party would not participate in any "unionist dominated body", he said.
"From Sinn Fein's point of view, we see these proposals as a determined attempt by the British to lay down a unionist framework for an internal settlement in the North before one word of negotiations has taken place. In short, an embryonic Stormont assembly. These proposals are also designed to detatch the Irish Government from negotiations," Mr McGuinness said.
It was fairly obvious that the unionists intended to use the elected forum to obstruct a negotiated settlement, he added.
Meanwhile, there was no debate at the ardfheis on an IRA ceasefire. Republican sources indicated again that there would be no early return to a cessation of violence.
There was criticism of the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, as well as of the British government and unionists over their roles in the peace process.
Opening the ardfheis, which was entitled "Working for Peace and Justice", Mr Mitchel McLaughlin said that Sinn Fein's criticisms of Mr Bruton's "mishandling of the peace process and his "deference to British government and unionist intransigence had been vindicated by the announcement of the election. Northern nationalists were "appalled by his blatantly partitionist analysis", he added.