The forthcoming general election will establish the DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, as the leader of unionism in the North, the party has claimed.
Launching the DUP's parliamentary and district council manifesto, Dr Paisley said he was confident the unionist electorate would reject the Ulster Unionist Party's "broken pledges" and "overwhelmingly endorse" his party as the dominant force within unionism.
"The chickens are coming home to roost. I am entitled to say to the electorate: `David Trimble has betrayed you. I say to you reject him,' " he said, accusing the UUP of supporting "the atrocious falsehood called the peace agreement".
The UUP had tried to preempt the DUP's manifesto launch by publishing its own document entitled "Not the DUP manifesto". The four-page leaflet contained a photograph of the DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, at a gathering of the Ulster Resistance Movement in 1986 as well as one of Dr Paisley visiting the fishing village of Portavogie, Co Down, with a Sinn Fein MLA, Mr Francie Molloy.
Headlined "10 Things the DUP will NOT be saying today", the pamphlet claimed the DUP had "done nothing" to secure the union, achieve decommissioning or save the RUC, while at the same time members enjoyed their ministerial positions.
The DUP hit back, saying the UUP was "playing distracting games". The UUP document was "nothing new" and had used the same material the party had put out in paid-for newspaper supplements, Mr Robinson said.
"We are fighting an election on serious issues. We have one manifesto. How many will the UUP have? A separate one for David Trimble, for Jeffrey Donaldson, for Martin Smyth, for Willie Ross? Just go through the pledges of their last manifesto - broken, broken, broken. That is why we will make substantial gains," Mr Robinson predicted.
The party is putting up a record number of candidates in 14 of the 18 constituencies but was not prepared to make predictions on how many it hoped to gain in addition to its sitting three MPs in East Belfast, North Antrim and South Antrim, other than to say they were "all there for the taking". It is understood that the five seats targeted by the DUP are East Derry, East Antrim, Strangford, West Tyrone and North Belfast. They are all currently held by Ulster Unionists.
Dr Paisley criticised the UUP for not backing an Assembly motion calling for the resignation of the Education Minister, Mr Martin McGuinness, who he accused of showing bias in favour of Catholic schools.
The UUP candidate for Strangford, Mr David McNarry, described the DUP manifesto as a "manifesto for misery" and accused the party of hypocrisy.
"The truth of the matter is that the DUP are in government with Sinn Fein. They have sat down and worked with Sinn Fein on Assembly committees over a long period of time."
"The DUP have done nothing to help bring about decommissioning. Peter Robinson is on record as saying it is not even a priority. Their manifesto does not make a single specific promise as to exactly how they will achieve decommissioning or agree a new form of power-sharing with the SDLP. It is a tissue of half truths and half promises," he insisted.