UNCERTAINTY and confusion remain about the political way forward in the North as the unionist parties, the SDLP and Alliance lobbied the British government yesterday on their favoured electoral system and the agenda for all party talks.
A list system was the only type of poll that the nationalist community would accept, SDLP deputy leader Mr Seamus Mallon, told the Minister for Political Development, Mr Michael Ancram, at Stormont Castle.
He reminded him that both governments had promised the chosen method would have to command broad support among the parties. A poll where Northern Ireland was a single constituency and electors voted for a party, not an individual candidate, was the only system commanding widespread backing, Mr Mallon said.
He warned that a wrong decision by the British could lead to the "total unravelling of the peace process". A "hybrid" electoral method combining the list system with a constituency based election would confuse voters and be a disaster, he said.
The Ulster Unionists and the Alliance Party favour an election based on the North's 18 Westminster constituencies with the electorate voting for individual candidates, not parties.
But the DUP agrees with the SDLP that a list system is preferable. The party met the Northern Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, at Stormont yesterday and told him it would not join all party talks in June if Dublin co-sponsored the process.
DUP deputy leader Mr Peter Robinson explained his objections to the British Irish consultation paper on the format and agenda for the talks.
His three main criticisms were that Dublin would be involved in discussions relating to internal Northern affairs that parties with out an electoral mandate could possibly be at the negotiating table and that both governments had not made a clear statement on arms disposal.
Meanwhile, the Alliance party leader, Dr John Alderdice, who met Mr Ancram yesterday, warned that all party talks could collapse on day one unless decommissioning topped the political agenda. Negotiations would be a fiasco if the arms issue was fudged, he added.