The voters face a difficult choice when they go to the polls tomorrow to elect the new MP for South Antrim. For this is no ordinary by-election in Northern Ireland. The normal rule in the Republic - that such contests are a test of the workings of the Government of the day - does not apply. The South Antrim by-election is set, primarily, to become a public poll on the internal state of unionism and the result will have important implications for the First Minister, Mr David Trimble, the consolidation of the Belfast Agreement, the interests of the British and Irish Governments and the peace process itself.
Most observers are agreed that South Antrim is a contest between the forces of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and that shifts in the SDLP, Sinn Fein, Alliance and others share of the vote will be of secondary importance. The backdrop to this strictly Unionist battle is the seepage in Mr Trimble's support, from 71 per cent at the signing of the Belfast Agreement in April 1998, to the narrow victory of 53 per cent to 47 per cent at the last meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council in May. How the Unionist vote breaks down tomorrow will have a major bearing on the political agenda, indeed the very future of the agreement, in Northern Ireland, this autumn.
Mr Trimble's standard-bearer in the by-election is Mr David Burnside, the former Vanguard stalwart from the 1970s who is now a London-based PR consultant. He re-emerged into the political limelight last March by forcing the adoption of an Ulster Unionist Council motion seeking to link sharing government with Sinn Fein to the retention of the RUC name. He initially backed the Belfast Agreement. He has now declared, however, that if he had known then what he knows now, he would not have supported it. The paramilitaries, he believes, have not met the criteria for entry to the Executive. He is a natural ally of the deputy UUP leader, Mr John Taylor, but not of Mr Trimble whom he would probably like to oust as leader.
It could be argued, with considerable justification, that Mr Burnside is presenting a confusing profile to UUP voters in South Antrim, a constituency with an anti-agreement majority. Mr Trimble had no choice but to back him when his own political adviser, Mr David Campbell, failed to secure the nomination. But UUP voters now face the conundrum that a vote for Mr Burnside, who is anti-agreement, is imperative to secure Mr Trimble and the agreement.
If there is a problem of consistency on the UUP side, however, the same cannot be said for the DUP candidate, the Rev William McCrea. He lost his Mid-Ulster Westminster seat to Mr Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein three years ago and won an assembly seat in the same constituency in 1998. He officiated at the funeral of the murdered LVF leader, Billy Wright, in 1997. He is anti-agreement to the core. The danger tomorrow is that pro-agreement Unionists may be complacent about this contest. They are, on the face of it, presented with the lesser of two evils. But apathy in South Antrim is a vote against Mr Trimble, the Executive, the Belfast Agreement, the potential for reform in the RUC and all that flows from democratic politics and peace. The people must go out and cast their vote. Too much can flow from this result to leave the way forward to others.