A vote for the Alliance Party would strengthen the centre ground in Northern Ireland and ensure that anti-agreement politicians would be unable to wreck the Assembly, according to the party leader, Lord Alderdice.
Introducing his party's election manifesto in Belfast yesterday, Lord Alderdice said Alliance would operate strategically within the Assembly to prevent anti-agreement unionists or anyone else frustrating its workings. It would play a "pivotal and pioneering role" in the Assembly.
"We will make sure the wreckers do not have their way," he said. "The Alliance Party is not only going to be at the heart of this new administration, it is going to be the entire focus around which the rest of politics is going to hang."
For tactical reasons he was not yet prepared to say whether Alliance would designate itself as unionist or as a party outside the nationalist or unionist traditions.
This could be crucial: under the agreement all key Assembly decisions must be adopted with support from a majority of unionist and nationalist members, or with a 60 per cent weighted majority, with support from 40 per cent of each of the unionist and nationalist designations.
Were more anti-agreement than pro-agreement unionists to be elected, the anti-agreement camp could potentially render the Assembly unworkable. This has raised the question of whether Alliance might designate itself unionist to strengthen the proagreement unionist bloc.
It was a question Lord Alderdice would not answer yesterday. "We have no intention of forewarning our political opponents who want to wreck this Assembly of how we are going to frustrate their attempts to wreck it," he said.
Lord Alderdice said his party could effectively hold the balance of power in the Assembly. "Voting for the party has never been so important. The potential of Alliance has never been so powerful," he said in the manifesto.
He said he believed the system of voting, proportional representation based on the single transferable vote, would be to Alliance's advantage. Where moderate pro-agreement unionists and nationalists would be likely to vote for the UUP and the SDLP respectively, he believed, their next transfers would go to the Alliance.
Lord Alderdice said he hoped that the substantial Yes vote in the referendums in the North and South would mark a major change in Northern politics, with the focus shifting from violence and constitutional matters to socioeconomic issues, as was the case in normal society.
The manifesto, It's Time for Tomorrow Together, calls for rejection of the "politics of division and despair", and describes the election as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change Northern Ireland".
On prisoners, it calls for a statutory requirement where victims will have full information about the release of those who have attacked them.
It says the early release of prisoners and the participation of Sinn Fein ministers in the Assembly executive must be linked to the dismantling of paramilitary organisations. Ultimately, Alliance wants Westminster to cede some power to the Assembly on security matters in order to create a Department of Justice with responsibility for policing and criminal justice.
It wants the Police Authority to be abolished and replaced by a regional policing liaison committee, and calls for a fully independent police complaints procedure, headed by an independent ombudsman.
Referring to concern about job losses in the police, Lord Alderdice suggested that the surplus expertise of the RUC, working in tandem with the Garda Siochana, could be employed in assisting central and eastern European countries to develop their civil policing systems.
He intended to raise this issue with the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, and the RUC Chief Constable, Mr Ronnie Flanagan.
Areas where the Assembly could co-operate with the South included tourism promotion, combating drugs-trafficking, health, education and industrial development and energy.
The Alliance manifesto calls for the creation of a Department of Community Relations and the promotion of integration at all levels in schooling, work, leisure and housing.
Lord Alderdice said the function of the Assembly must be to give the people "more clout in running our own affairs". He said the Assembly should have the power to vary tax-raising methods so that the damage from the Republic adopting the euro could be tempered.
