Constituency profile: North Belfast:North Belfast is home to two of the North's best-known political hardmen - local MP, DUP stalwart and barrister Nigel Dodds and Sinn Féin policing spokesman and former Maze escapee, Gerry Kelly.
It is the constituency which had the highest number of deaths during the Troubles and which today boasts the greatest number of so-called peace walls - a mish-mash of loyalists, republicans, severe deprivation, relative affluence and a smattering of conspicuous wealth.
Across the political divide, proximity has bought little sense of affinity with near- constant sectarian tensions.
Dodds's office, close to town, nestles between modest Victorian villas, some primly neat, others dilapidated, a few abandoned. Demographically the unionist areas are in decline with a growing elderly population, while the Catholic areas complain of overcrowding.
Dodds admits his constituents are more concerned with bread- and-butter issues than the potential jam that might some day bind his party and Sinn Féin in a power-sharing executive.
In common with every other politician in the area, proposed new water charges are the biggest complaint he hears on the doorstep. "If the Assembly is back, that's the issue we'll have to deal with as our number one priority."
A recent report showed that literacy levels among school leavers, particularly in loyalist areas in this constituency, were appallingly low.
"There's a whole generation of young people coming out, one after another, and you worry what's going to happen in 20, 30 years time," he says.
Is that not reason enough to get back into government and take action on the issue?
"Absolutely, that's key," agrees Dodds. "What we've got to ensure is that if we get devolution we don't end up in another six months with it all crashing down. If we can get it right so devolution returns, so it's stable, durable, it lasts - that will be a tremendous achievement."
Fred Cobain, the sole Ulster Unionist in the constituency, is something of a maverick, representing a working-class unionist area outside the comfortable commuter belt traditionally seen as the party's heartland.
Cobain's office lies a short distance past republican Ardoyne and loyalist Glenbryn, scene of the Holy Cross protest in 2001.
An old man stands in the reception area and complains that Belfast council is trying to charge an elderly female neighbour £40 for a new wheelie bin.
"She hasn't got that kind of money and I already get her papers for her in the morning, I'm not taking the rubbish out too," he explains to the receptionist, several times over.
With calm grace, she deals with him and answers two phone calls. "This is nothing," she says. "The other day I had 13 people queuing out the door. Three of them were eastern European and could hardly speak English."
Cobain works hard for his constituents. For all the high- profile TV appearances, nobody gets elected in North Belfast unless they can talk wheelie bins.
A short distance away through the leafy upper Antrim Road, a traditional middle-class Catholic stronghold, sitting SDLP assembly member Alban Maginness is in ebullient form. His is a safe seat but he is confident he can strip another from Sinn Féin.
His running mate Pat Convery, Belfast councillor and deputy lord mayor, is a genial man who agrees with Maginness that SDLP voters are re-engaged, re-enthused and eager to make their mark in this election.
The prospect of water charges and the lack of political progress will mean they turn out in droves.
Away from the tree-lined, middle-class crescents, in the tiny terraced streets of nationalist enclaves, Sinn Féin's recent endorsement of policing has certainly not been met with universal approval.
Gerry Kelly's running mate, Caral Ní Chuilín, is a soft- spoken, youthful-looking grandmother and the only woman running in the constituency.
Both nationalist parties agree that housing is a priority on the nationalist side. Between 75-84 per cent of people on waiting lists for housing in North Belfast are Catholic nationalists, says Ní Chuilín. "They're saying this is what it was like for us in the early 60s, late 70s," she says.
She is hoping that her first experience of Stormont will be as part of a working Assembly.
"Even among the big political issues, the orange and the green, there's all the other stuff people are hoping to get at," she says. "I'm busting to get at the other stuff."
NATIONALIST BATTLEGROUND:Sinn Féin's Caral Ní Chuilín dismisses the SDLP's chances of taking a seat from republicans as overconfidence. A Belfast city councillor for three years, this is Ní Chuilín's first time to stand in the Assembly elections.
The previous incumbent, Sinn Féin's Kathy Stanton, stepped down and rumours abound she refused to endorse the party's policy on policing. In areas like Ardoyne, the policing policy is particularly unpopular and some Sinn Féin voters are likely to stay away from the polls. It is nigh on impossible to imagine that the SDLP will pick up many disaffected Sinn Féin votes. Instead, it is hoping that a softening of Sinn Féin's poll coupled with a good turnout by SDLP voters will be enough to take the extra seat. However, Sinn Féin's policing issue is likely to play well with traditional SDLP voters, which may reverse the effect.
UNIONIST BATTLEGROUND:Dodds talks of reclaiming the glory days of pre-1998 when unionists held four of the six North Belfast seats but the demographics suggest otherwise. United Kingdom Unionist Party leader Bob McCartney is on the ballot sheet here, as well as several other constituencies, in an attempt to rattle DUP cages. There is sure to be a percentage of disgruntled DUP-ers happy to switch allegiance in an effort to stop any chance of power-sharing. This is an area where "on the ground" work between elections pays dividends on poll day, so few rate McCartney as a serious contender. His inclusion may, however, scupper DUP's chances of taking a seat from Fred Cobain, the sole UUP assemblyman in the constituency. The UUP party machine is watching the seat and admits Cobain has a fight on his hands. A ground war is how the Cobain camp describes it. DUP voters are disciplined about voting down the party ticket, they admit.
WILDCARD:As if! Northern Ireland politics often has a depressing sense of déjà vu and nowhere is this more evident than in North Belfast. Raymond McCord, whose campaign to expose his son's killers resulted in the ground-breaking Police Ombudsman report on collusion, stood in the 2003 election, but garnered a paltry 340 votes on the seventh count when he was eliminated. He is standing again and claims to be getting a good response on the doorstep from both communities. There is certainly a new-found respect for McCord's bravery and tenacity, but without a party machine and being something of a single-issue candidate (victims' rights), few rate his chances. He may pick up some preference votes but hardly enough to bring him home on the day.
PREDICTION:No change. There are bound to be some skirmishes on the sidelines between Sinn Féin/SDLP and DUP/UUP, but they are unlikely to upset the current balance of power.
OUTGOING MEMBERS:
(Six seats)
*Nigel Dodds (DUP) 9276 (29.4%)
*Gerry Kelly (SF) 5524 (17.5%)
*Alban Maginness (SDLP) 3186 (10.1%)
Kathy Stanton (SF) 2990 (9.5%)
*Fred Cobain (UUP) 2961 (9.4%)
Nelson McCausland (DUP) 1500 (4.8%)
*Denotes those also elected in 1998