Powersharing with Sinn Féin will be "a battle a day" DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson has forecast.
Borrowing the phrase used by Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams about the prospects of a DUP-SF deal at Stormont, Mr Robinson further heightened expectation that the leading unionist party is preparing to go into an executive with republicans on or after March 26th.
Party colleague Jeffrey Donaldson also claimed Wednesday's election would act as a referendum on powersharing, a claim hotly disputed by the Ulster unionists.
Mr Robinson's remarks were made in the context of a critique of the "mandatory coalition" envisaged by the Belfast Agreement which he vehemently opposes.
Placing his reference to "a battle a day" in context, he told BBC Radio Ulster: "That is why we have argued that this cannot be a permanent structure. This cannot be a lasting and enduring form of government." He said he agreed with Mr Adams's remarks about an executive dominated by the DUP and Sinn Féin making for difficult government.
"I don't think that it's going to be an easy relationship," he said. "There will be no love lost between Sinn Féin and the DUP."
Making his pitch for so-called centre-ground votes, SDLP leader Mark Durkan moved to capitalise on public fears, revealed in an opinion poll last week, that the two largest parties would have a stormy relationship in government.
"People don't want endless battles and government teetering on collapse," Mr Durkan said.
"That will only guarantee deadlock and gridlock. Ultimately, it will only deliver more direct rule, hurting us all in our pockets," he said. He said his party wanted to deliver real prosperity "to lift the lives of everybody in every county".
"We want the Celtic Tiger roaring up North. Only we have the policies to deliver this. But we need devolution running stably to make it happen." Alliance party leader David Ford opted for similar tactics, claiming that his party could deliver stability.
"This election is about making our political class work . . . But only Alliance can be trusted to work them." Former republican prisoners are to sign a letter calling on voters to reject Sinn Féin's endorsement of policing and justice structures agreed at its January ardfheis.
Up to 400 are to sign a letter critical of Mr Adams's party and calling for them to be rejected in Wednesday's election.
Danny McBrearty, a former prisoner and Sinn Féin critic, said: "The movement has been dismembered by the current leadership. We are asking people to open their eyes. It is a total capitulation of what the last 30 years was about, what was the armed struggle about, why did hundreds of out patriot dead die? For Gerry Adams and his leadership to enter Stormont, which they told us they would never do.
"They told us that they would never give a bullet or an ounce, now there's not a bullet or an ounce left." The Orange Order issued an appeal for traditional unionist values to be upheld in the election and for an end to involvement in Northern Ireland by the Government.
"Grand Lodge, conscious of the implication of the forthcoming election, deplores the erosion of democratic government in Northern Ireland and rejects the vassal position where the prime minister of the Republic of Ireland calls the election jointly with the prime minister of the United Kingdom," a spokesman said.
"We urge the people of Northern Ireland to vote for candidates disassociated completely from terrorism and criminality and who will restore a form of democracy wherein the electorate can hire and fire their governors and maintain the United Kingdom."