More than one million Northern Ireland voters are entitled to go to the polls early next month to elect 18 MPs to Westminster and almost 600 local councillors.
The main Northern parties embarked on the election campaign yesterday by issuing confident statements about their prospects in both the local government elections and the higher-profile, more significant UK general election.
The key battles are the DUP versus the Ulster Unionist Party and Sinn Féin against the SDLP.
The DUP MP for North Belfast, Nigel Dodds, said last night that his party would continue to make inroads into the UUP vote.
"When unionists see the choice between vibrant confident unionism which has held the line, engaged in constructive negotiations, put Sinn Féin/IRA on the back foot, and that's the case for the Democratic Unionists, and compare that to the Trimble era of concessions to the IRA, I think they will make their choice very clearly."
Commenting on recent talks to agree a unionist single-candidate pact for key marginal constituencies, Mr Dodds said that the UUP was not serious about such an arrangement.
"The UUP's proposals amounted to nothing less than a save-the-Ulster-Unionist-Party exercise that shunned contests between unionists in constituencies where there is no prospect of losing the seat to nationalists or republicans, and abandoned unionists in several constituencies, directing them to vote for a united-Irelander or a single-issue candidate."
However, Sir Reg Empey, a senior UUP Assembly member, said he did not believe people in Northern Ireland "wanted a country carved up between Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams".
"Both these men are divisive. We need to be uniting Northern Ireland, not dividing it.
"To have each section of the community operating separately, with its own leaders, is against the long-term interests of everybody here."
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said his party was entering the election in a positive frame of mind, while not taking the electorate for granted.
"Despite recent attempts to demonise our party and our voters, we face into these two important elections in a confident mood.
"We will be bringing our vision of a new Ireland and support for the peace process to every constituency in the six counties. We will fight this election as an all-Ireland party," said Mr Adams.
"At the end of this campaign we aim to come out with increased political strength to allow us to ensure that in the negotiations which will follow this poll the Good Friday agreement agenda is secured, and the peace process is advanced further."
SDLP leader Mark Durkan said his party was entering the election with a strong slate of candidates for both the Westminster and local elections, and with a strong policy platform.
He said a vote for the SDLP was a vote for inclusion, "real peace" and "decent nationalism".
Alliance leader David Ford said only his party had a "credible alternative vision" for Northern Ireland.
