The former SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, is expected to confirm today he will not run for the European Parliament on grounds of ill health.
Mr Hume (67) has held one of the North's three seats in the Strasbourg assembly since 1979. It is understood doctors and members of his family have pressed Mr Hume not to defend the seat next June.
He was taken ill on a visit to Austria in 1999 and underwent the first of four operations in Kufstein before returning to Ireland for further treatment. Poor health also played a part in his decision to stand down as leader of the SDLP in November 2001 and to resign his Assembly seat in August 2000.
It was anticipated that Mr Hume's candidacy would be confirmed at the forthcoming 33rd SDLP annual conference in Belfast later this month.
Party headquarters was expecting to schedule Mr Hume's acceptance speech just before the address by the party leader, Mr Mark Durkan. No successor has been chosen, but the naming of his successor is not now expected for at least a month. His decision will put new pressure on Mr Durkan to run for the nomination and to consolidate his leadership of the party.
However Sinn Féin, in particular, will feel that his decision not to run will bolster the chances of its candidate, Ms Bairbre de Brún, taking the seat.
Mr Hume, a former front-bench member of the Socialist group in the European Parliament, has been an MEP since direct elections to the assembly were first held.
He is viewed as one of the chief architects of the Belfast Agreement. Through the Hume-Adams talks in the early 1990s he played a significant role in persuading the IRA to call its first ceasefire in August 1994. He came to prominence in Derry during the civil rights campaign in the 1960s and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Mr David Trimble in 1998. Mr Hume's decision follows the announcement by the DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, that he will not defend his European seat.
