Anti-Belfast Agreement unionists have accused the Ulster Unionist Party of "driving a coach and horses " through the agreement to secure the re-election of Mr David Trimble as First Minister.
By tabling a tactical motion, anti-agreement unionists succeeded in delaying the vote for the posts of First and Deputy First Minister by 24 hours. The same motion also delayed a vote on the redesignation of a number of non-aligned Alliance MLAs as unionists, which will provide Mr Trimble with the necessary unionist majority for re-election.
The DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, reminded Mr Trimble of a statement made by him the previous week that there would be no credibility in being returned to office on the back of other parties' redesignation.
"It doesn't matter if they [the UUP] have to drive their coach and horses through the Northern Ireland Act, they'll do it. It doesn't matter if they have to drive a coach and horses through the Belfast Agreement, they'll do it."
In a heated debate, the Alliance leader, Mr David Ford, who had on Friday stated in the chamber that his party would "not be dressing up for Hallowe'en [as unionists]" came in for particular criticism from the DUP and others.
The leader of the United Kingdom Unionist Party, Mr Bob McCartney, said the Alliance Party should "not be in the political arena but in the circus".
He had always recognised the farcical aspects of the Assembly but never more so then when its future depended "on the decision of a self-confessed horse's ass", Mr McCartney added, in reference to an earlier radio interview given by Mr Ford in which he had said he was prepared to become the "back end of a pantomime horse" if it guaranteed the future of the North's institutions.
"It is a charade, it is fraud, distortion, disfigurement, it is a despicable act of horse-trading," Mr McCartney concluded.
The equine metaphor was also deployed by a DUP MLA, Mr Sammy Wilson, who said the Alliance Party had ridden to Mr Trimble's rescue "not on a white charger but on a pantomime horse".
"We in the DUP have been accused time and again of being the wreckers of the agreement when in reality, the wreckers are those who are rewriting the rules every time they don't work to their advantage," he insisted.
The UUP's Sir Reg Empey then proposed Mr Trimble and the SDLP's Mr Mark Durkan as candidates for the posts of First and Deputy First Minister, a move which prompted Mr Wilson to appeal to all UUP MLAs to "examine their consciences" before casting their vote today.
While it was right for them to give consideration and loyalty to their party leader, their first priority should be their country and the mandate they had received from the people of Northern Ireland, he added.
The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, said the aim of Mr Trimble's re-election as First Minister was "to get IRA/Sinn FΘin back into government". Those causing mayhem in the streets of north Belfast and elsewhere were all backers of the Belfast Agreement, he alleged.