Unionists opposed to powersharing with Sinn Féin at Stormont will stand against the DUP in key seats across the North.
United Kingdom Unionist Party leader Robert McCartney confirmed last night that "seven or eight candidates and three independent candidates" will join his opposition to any move by the Rev Ian Paisley's party to enter an executive with Sinn Féin on the basis of the d'Hondt formula for sharing cabinet seats.
Nominations for the March 7th Assembly election close tomorrow, but it seems certain that Mr McCartney will contest North Belfast, South Antrim, West Tyrone, and Fermanagh-South Tyrone, in addition to his own constituency of North Down.
If elected to more than one constituency, Mr McCartney said he would be empowered under Assembly rules to nominate a replacement. He told The Irish Timeslast night he expected nominations for IRA victims campaigner William Frazer to be lodged in Newry-Armagh and possibly in Foyle, while papers for David Calvert will be submitted in Upper Bann.
It is also possible that a candidate may be selected to contest East Antrim which elected three DUP candidates in the last Assembly poll in 2003. Veteran councillor Jack McKee, who quit the DUP after the St Andrews Agreement, said it was "quite possible" a name would emerge later today or tomorrow.
Mr McCartney said he had addressed some of the DUP councillors in Ballymena, Co Antrim, who vowed last Friday they would not campaign for local MP and DUP leader Ian Paisley.
"Five of them attended a meeting I held on December 21st, set up by a local businessman in Ballymena. They came along and after 45 minutes' questions, not a single one of them disagreed with anything I had to say."
Another DUP stalwart has since quit the party in South Down. George McConnell, branch chairman in Kilkeel for more than 20 years, said he would not even vote in the election.
The DUP has confirmed it will require candidates to sign resignation letters which will be acted upon in the event of breaches of discipline. Fines of £2,000 will apply, although £20,000 fines were considered.
This move was attacked as "anti-democratic and anti-British" by the Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey. The DUP said Sir Reg was wrong to suggest that Mr Paisley alone can invoke the resignation, and insisted it was designed only to ensure that DUP candidates remained true to their manifesto commitments.
Yesterday, SDLP leader Mark Durkan forecast that Sinn Féin and the DUP would try to turn the election into a "ding dong" about who is going to be the biggest party and first minister. He said his party will be "fighting the election about people's ambitions".
He accused Sinn Féin of being focused on "serving the interest of past or former IRA people, serving their own partisan interest rather than the interest of the wider nationalist community or indeed society at large".
However, Sinn Féin chairman Mitchel McLaughlin claimed his party would "act in the best interest of the electorate". He added that "in the event that the DUP continues to abdicate its responsibility to participate in a powersharing government, we will apply what I believe will be an increased mandate to ensure that the DUP does not stunt or dictate the pace of change".