The Ulster Unionist Party leadership has remained resolute in its refusal to allow Mr Jeffrey Donaldson to contest the Assembly election. Despite representations from members of his Lagan Valley constituency association yesterday, the UUP's officer team insisted Mr Donaldson could not stand in the election.
The decision is viewed as further marking Mr David Trimble's determination to face down antiagreement dissidents within his party. His gamble in so doing may have been influenced by a significant UUP bloc in Lagan Valley siding with the leadership against Mr Donaldson.
Mr David Greene, a UUP councillor for Lisburn, claimed it was a case of "mob rule" which forced the effective abandonment of the Lagan Valley candidate selection meeting on Thursday night. He told BBC Radio Ulster that some of the UUP members who supported Mr Donaldson had "intimidated" others who agreed with the leadership.
Mr Greene said that at least 50 per cent of the 220 people who attended the selection meeting were opposed to Mr Donaldson standing for the Assembly. The selection meeting is due to reconvene tonight in Lisburn.
Mr Trimble in an attempt to placate Mr Donaldson has appointed him UUP spokesman on two crucial agreement Bills which are to be introduced in the British parliament in the coming weeks. This olive branch, however, could potentially leave Mr Donaldson in a position to cause further problems for Mr Trimble in the run-up to polling day on June 25th.
Mr Donaldson said yesterday he would abide by the officers' decision. But he did not hide his annoyance and his own determination to try to force the British government to directly link prisoner releases and Sinn Fein serving in an Assembly election to paramilitary decommissioning, a link which appears to contradict the terms of the Belfast Agreement.
Mr Trimble said last night he was designating Mr Donaldson spokesman on a prisoner release Bill and a substantive Bill to set up the Assembly to ensure that Mr Tony Blair "gives plain and direct legislative effect to the requirement that there be a general peace, approved in word and deed, including decommissioning".
This decision may be part of a strategy by Mr Trimble to keep Mr Donaldson isolated from the more trenchant UUP parliamentary opposition to the agreement coming from Mr William Thompson MP and Mr William Ross MP. But it would still place Mr Donaldson in a position to force decommissioning so high up the agenda that it could threaten Sinn Fein's allegiance to the agreement.
"In parliament I will be putting forward very strongly the views that I have articulated in recent weeks in terms of release of prisoners, decommissioning and the prospect of people linked to terrorist organisations becoming ministers in the [Assembly] government," Mr Donaldson said yesterday.
The Sinn Fein chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, said there was "a lot of concern that the Unionist Party are intent on wrecking the Assembly if they don't get their way". Mr Trimble should prevent anti-agreement unionists from entering the Assembly under the banner of the UUP. "David Trimble must act now to assure people that he will not tolerate elements within his own party who are planning to wreck the Assembly," he said.
The DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, also kept up the pressure on pro-agreement unionists.
He accused Mr Trimble of being prepared to allow paramilitary prisoner releases and Sinn Fein ministers in an Assembly executive before decommissioning.
