SF declines to withdraw McGuinness but seeks consultation

THE Sinn Fein president signalled yesterday that the party's Mid Ulster candidate in the Westminster elections, Mr Martin McGuinness, would not withdraw despite the prospective candidature of Ms Roisin McAliskey.

"We believe that Martin McGuinness, as our chief negotiator, is head and shoulders above all of the other candidates in the field and that he is the only candidate on the nationalist side who can win the Mid Ulster seat," Mr Gerry Adams said.

But he was not categoric about the party's position and called on Ms Bernadette McAliskey, who made the announcement that her daughter would stand, to consult them "with all speed". When she does, he said, "then of course we will go back to our ard chomhairle and consider all of these matters."

Ms McAliskey kickstarted the Northern election campaign earlier this week when she said her daughter would be a candidate in Mid Ulster if she was not released on bail by the time nominations closed on April 14th. She called on other nationalist and republican candidates to withdraw. In 1969 Ms McAliskey caused a sensation when she became the youngest ever MP by standing as a nationalist unity candidate in the same constituency.

Mr Adams expressed his surprise at the decision. "I would have preferred that there had been some consultation before this announcement was made. Bernadette [McAliskey] is long enough around to know that there are ways of doing these things inclusively and democratically and in consultation."

Ms Roisin McAliskey (25), who is seven months pregnant, is on remand in London's Holloway prison and faces extradition proceedings to Germany for questioning about the IRA bombing of a British army base in Osnabruck last year.

Her mother said when she made the announcement that "in the face of the continued refusal of the British court to acknowledge her right to bail and the British administration's racist belligerence, insult and inhumanity, we feel this may be her only opportunity to secure her release before the birth of her child".

The move has confused the nationalist campaigns in Mid Ulster. SDLP candidate Mr Denis Haughey indicated that he would stand and the party states there can be no alliance with Sinn Fein without an unequivocal ceasefire.

Although both Sinn Fein and the SDLP want to deal carefully and sensitively with Ms McAliskey's case, Mid Ulster is seen as "winnable" for nationalists, particularly because of the changes in the constituency boundaries. There is a nationalist majority in the constituency but unionists have held the seat since 1974 because both Sinn Fein and the SDLP contested.

The current MP, the DMs Rev Willie McCrea, said yesterday: "Every person who has a grievance and feels they want to stand in the constituency has a right to stand." But he added: "It's rather extreme that people who have a personal grievance decide that everyone else should stand aside."

He conceded the shrewdness of the move which could guarantee him the seat if there are three nationalist candidates: "It's smart that as a person who is not really flavour of the month with Sinn Fein, Bernadette has now put the skids under them to say listen here you better look at it again and all step aside for me'."

Mr McCrea was speaking at a press conference where his party leader, Dr Ian Paisley, demanded that all regional party leaders be allowed to share in any televised debate between the Prime Minister, Mr John Major, and the Labour Party leader, Mr Tony Blair. Mr Paisley said he had received legal advice that as a party leader he could, under the law, contribute and question Mrs Major about his programme on Northern Ireland.