SHOULD they have called it a personifesto? That was the joke on Wednesday night as members of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition saw the first copies of their manifesto leaflet.
The top candidate on the regional list, Ms Monica McWilliams, described the coalition as a group of women from Northern Ireland, Protestant and Catholic, urban and rural. "Our political perspectives are as diverse as our ages.
The coalition was formed just over a month ago to take advantage of the "only opportunity to have our voices heard in Northern Ireland,"she told a press conference yesterday.
They were "amused and bemused", she said, to see John Major taking the same line as the group on decommissioning. If only he had made it a day later they could have claimed the credit for it.
Ms Pearl Sagar, second on the coalition's regional list, denied that the manifesto was a fudge. "We're not all orange and we re not all green . . . " she said. Ms Jane Morrice said the press conference was "a microcosm of what should be happening in Northern Ireland".
Ms McWilliams said they were not anti men and expected to get votes from both sexes. "We work with men, are married to men, have male partners, adult children, neighbours and friends."
Asked to expand on the group's stance on decommissioning, she said the coalition would make it part of the negotiations: "We stand for nonviolence. The cause in Northern Ireland isn't worth one more death in this country."
