"It may sound strange but David Trimble is the first man that has made me feel as if Northern Ireland has a future. A lot of my friends and peers have moved abroad, they have been driven away. But he's given me an optimism that things might change."
Zara Whitten (24) from Craigavon, Co Armagh, is a pro-agreement Ulster Unionist voter from Mr Trimble's Lagan Valley constituency. She has little time for the party infighting.
"So many people have their own agenda, how can they do unionism any good? There should be strength in numbers but it seems not. That's disappointing but it's not surprising," she said.
"Coming up to Christmas when the executive was formed I was thinking, `Great, it's all sorted.' How naive I am."
Ms Hunter, a health worker, said that as a party voter she had one piece of advice for UUP delegates: "Get rid of the leader, he has sold us down the river.
"He sold the agreement to us saying there would be peace but now he wants to go into government again with people who have guns.
"I fear for my son's future, that he'll see what I have seen, because if republicans don't get what they want in government they'll bring the violence back on to the streets again."
Devolved government in the North would not work, said Ms Hunter, for the simple reason that the various groups in Northern Ireland could not agree with each other and did not trust each other.
"But what the UUP has to do - and this is from a person on the ground - is get rid of the leader. He's siding with the opposition and somebody has to take him on or he'll do more damage.
"Before, when he was voted leader, he would stand up for his rights. We saw him at Drumcree but now he's backing away from people on the ground and going back on his word. If we can't trust him who can we trust?"
Stanley Hillis (62), a farmer from Banbridge, Co Down and a UUP voter, is keen to stress that such matters as the North's ailing agricultural industry have been neglected since the suspension of the political institutions.
"We've got to fill this power vacuum but republicans have got to say to us, `We are determined to go down that democratic path and are prepared to work with you.'
"We don't need guns in a democratic society, we don't need paramilitaries. I want to see the republicans move. I want fair play, no more, no less than them, just a fair slice of the cake.
"I think unionism has dug itself into a hole over decommissioning, we shouldn't have set a time limit on it. But if we go back in there has to be a clear-cut understanding that within a month or two republicans would give us a confidence boost," said Mr Hillis.
The arms question leaves unionists with the impression that the republican movement is not sincere about the peace process, according to numerous UUP voters.
"All over history the IRA claimed they spoke for all of the people of the island. Well, the people spoke in the referendum for the agreement. That's what David Trimble is coming at when he calls for decommissioning," said Mrs Johnson, a retired schoolteacher from south Fermanagh.
"It's not a pile of guns at a certain date. We want them to agree with de Chastelain a programme whereby the guns and explosives will be done away with. We have seen nothing coming from Sinn Fein/IRA. We have given everything and more than most of us wanted to give," she added.
Mrs Johnson said she was satisfied that Mr Trimble's recent comments in Washington that the executive could be re-established without "guns up-front" was not a backtracking on the party's core principle of no guns, no government.
"If you're in negotiations you can't go around telling every Tom, Dick and Harry what you're going to say, or what you're going to do.
"I like the way he has handled people and the party generally. He's the smartest one we've got. I trust him to go and do the business. Let him get on with it."
Trevor Warner (28) from south Belfast said it was a shame that the power-sharing executive had failed, but he felt it was necessary for Mr Trimble to draw a line in the sand.
"Risks will have to be taken for peace and if it takes longer down the line to get things sorted, then so be it. But I can't see how much further David Trimble can go at the present.
"If the two issues, decommissioning and the executive, can be resolved we can move forward. Each issue is as important to each community," he added.
Mr Warner said the anti-agreement wing of the party should offer an alternative strategy to the current process.
"No alternatives are being put forward. It's just a `look I told you so' attitude. But where Sinn Fein have a clear idea of where they want to go, within unionism there is the battle over what is our identity," he added.
The process is starting to stagnate and people are getting fed up, according to Mark Blackburn (30), an accountant from east Belfast. However, he stressed the unionist community had made ample concessions.
"It would be political prostitution if we gave any more. It might sound crude but people like David Trimble have done all they can without so much as a token gesture from republicans. And a token gesture would have gone a long way to ease unionists' fears," he said.
Any replacement of Mr Trimble by an anti-agreement figure would be detrimental to the peace process. "Trimble is strong enough not to sell us out but he's wise enough to know he has to make concessions," he added.
Irwin Armstrong, a businessman from Ballymena, Co Antrim, described himself as a "tactical" Ulster Unionist voter in that he opposes the DUP. He believed Mr Trimble made a mistake by not standing up to the anti-agreement wing of his party at an earlier stage.
"You can't have a party that takes a decision and then members come out publicly and campaign against it. Trimble shouldn't have allowed it to happen.
"The party also hasn't handled the process very well strategically. They've painted themselves into too many corners, like making up stupid four-word slogans like `no guns - no government'."
According to Mr Armstrong many Ulster Unionist voters feel disillusioned about the party and may not "bother to get up off their backsides" for the next election.
A 28-year-old doctor based in the City Hospital in Belfast said he was embarrassed to admit that he would be voting DUP in the next election if the current UUP leadership remained.
"I am an Ulster Unionist who voted No to the agreement and everything that has happened since has strengthened my belief.
"The republican movement is very clearly not going to decommission, they haven't changed and I think we should cut and run from this political process.
"When DUP members are on television I find they talk more sense than Dermot Nesbitt. It's an embarrassing thing for a young, educated, middle-class Protestant to admit they would vote for the DUP but I can't vote for this process, it's falling apart."