The Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister has indicated that he does not intend to stand for re-election to the Assembly.
Speaking on the BBC, Mr Seamus Mallon said not many Assembly members would be returning after the next election in 2003.
"I'll not be there, there will be a lot of people throughout the political spectrum who won't be there and I think then it will take a different turn and a different angle," he said.
Mr Mallon is expected to continue to stand as the party's MP in Newry and Armagh in the next election, which is expected in May. He was the party's chief negotiator in the talks that led to the Belfast Agreement and has been the MP for Newry and Armagh since 1986. Mr Mallon was born in Markethill, Co Armagh, in 1936.
The party is not believed to have a preferred candidate for the post of Deputy First Minister at the moment. Mr Mallon's comments came the day after his party leader, Mr John Hume, formally resigned from the Assembly.
An Ulster Unionist Assembly member has said two British soldiers who killed a Belfast teenager should not have been kept in the army.
Scots Guards Mark Wright and James Fisher each served six years of a life sentence for the murder of Mr Peter McBride (18) in 1992. He was shot in the back as he fled from a military checkpoint. Last week the army confirmed the two men would be allowed to stay in uniform.
Mr Duncan Shipley Dalton, a former member of the British army, made the comments in an Assembly adjournment debate on the men's reinstatement.
He said it was right that the men should have been released from prison, but said they had still committed "murder" while "in the queen's uniform".
"It is not acceptable for an ex-IRA or UVF member to be in the security forces so why should they be any different?" he said.
Introducing the debate the SDLP's North Belfast Assemblyman, Mr Alban Maginness, said: "It truly beggars belief that the army board could have properly come to this decision once again to retain these two convicted murderers in the army."
Dr Ian Paisley said he sympathised with the McBride family's loss but accused the SDLP of hypocrisy for condemning the soldiers' actions while allowing into government "those who headed up the organisation, the IRA, which did such dastardly deeds".