Northern Ireland Agriculture Minister Mrs Brid Rodgers is to fight the West Tyrone seat in the general election, it was confirmed today.
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Mrs Brid Rodgers
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The SDLP Assembly member will challenge Sinn Féin's Mr Pat Doherty for the nationalist vote in a bid to unseat anti-Agreement Ulster Unionist Mr William Thompson.
Mrs Rodgers said she was confident of winning the seat and thus representing the 80 per centof people in West Tyrone who supported the BelfastAgreement.
In a reference to Sinn Féin's abstentionist policy at Westminster, she said: "I will also go to Westminster when it is necessary to cast my vote and to fight for amendments, as we did in the Policing Bill. I will be representing the people at all levels inside Parliament."
Mrs Rodgers, who has regularly contested Mr David Trimble's Upper Bann constituency, switched to West Tyrone as the moderate nationalist party attempts to counteract the growing electoral threat from republicans.
She said Assemblyman Mr Joe Byrne, the SDLP candidate in the 1997 election, had asked her to run, with the full backing of the constituency party.
In the last Westminster election, Mr Thompson beat Mr Byrne by just 1,161 votes as the SDLP and Sinn Féin split the nationalist vote.
But Mrs Rodgers said she believed she could topple the Ulster Unionist this time.
"A recent opinion poll in West Tyrone has actually put the SDLP over 30 per cent and the other parties in the 20s," she said.
The increased competition may be good news for Mr Thompson, whose seat is under increasing threat.
Since 1997, Sinn Féin has been making electoral headway and was the top party at the Assembly elections in 1998, with 34% per centof the vote.
The Sinn Féin candidate, Mr Pat Doherty MLA, said he was surprised by the timing of Mrs Rodgers' decision, as his chairman Mr Mitchel McLaughlin had written to the SDLP asking for a meeting about a possible electoral pact.
Mr Doherty, who is Sinn Féin vice president, said he was the only nationalist candidate capable of taking the seat from Mr Thompson.
"Brid would need to understand the facts on the ground that Sinn Féin is the biggest party," he said.
"We have totally re-organised, re-structured the party over the last four years and I am absolutely confident that Sinn Féin is the only party that can unseat the anti-Agreement candidate."
In the Assembly elections, Sinn Féin was 3,800 votes ahead of the SDLP in the constituency, with 34 per cent of the vote.