MR David Trimble may give an implicit, though not explicit, deadline for IRA decommissioning in an attempt to survive today's meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council in Belfast.
At the urging of his deputy, Mr John Taylor, Mr Trimble held surprise talks in Belfast last night with leading dissident MP Mr Jeffrey Donaldson. However, even as those discussions were taking place the indications were that the two men were heading for a showdown over Mr Donaldson's demand for an explicit Christmas deadline for UUP withdrawal from the Executive in the continued absence of IRA decommissioning.
Mr Donaldson requested the meeting after a statement by Mr Taylor saying there was "much merit" in many of the proposals circulated to UUC delegates by Mr Donaldson, and urging both sides to resume the attempt to find "agreement leading to unanimity" at today's meeting.
However it is understood Mr Trimble declined to tell Mr Donaldson the detail of his counter-proposals, and flatly rejected an "explicit" deadline for withdrawal from the Executive. An added complication for Mr Trimble is that Mr Taylor appears determined the party should not continue in the Executive into the new year without decommissioning. If the Strangford MP holds to that position then he and a number of disillusioned Assembly members could be crucial to the outcome of today's vote. There was also continuing speculation about the position of the Enterprise Minister, Sir Reg Empey, who was associated with the earlier overtures to Mr Donaldson.
However, a Trimble aide last night said the leader had a "measured and attractive" package to put to the delegates and expressed confidence they would back it. Central to that package, it is believed, is a proposal that the Ulster Unionist Council should reconvene in early January to review its position.
Nervous officials in London and Dublin appeared resigned to the idea that Mr Trimble's survival would be tied to "some degree of conditionality" about the party's continued participation in government with Sinn Fein. The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, apparently left Belfast on Thursday night persuaded that Mr Trimble was unlikely to win more than two months in which to see the decommissioning issue advanced.
The worry is that another cliffhanging vote today would see an implied deadline quickly translate into a real one - with republicans again less likely to move in response to an Ulster Unionist timetable.
Mr Trimble is applying heavy pressure on the two governments to have Gen John de Chastelain's International Commission assume responsibility for stipulating the timetable for the promised process of putting IRA weapons beyond use.
Meanwhile, he is likely to define his proposed "calibrated response" to continued republican refusal to decommission and to give details of the scale of withdrawal he envisages from North/South bodies established under the Agreement.
One suggestion circulating last night was that Mr Trimble could seek to apply a sanction directly against Sinn Fein by refusing to nominate its representatives to sit on North/South bodies.