Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble called today for the creation of a cross-community administration in Northern Ireland based on the "centrist" parties from the unionist and nationalist communities.
Mr Trimble urged voters to "reinvigorate" the centre by backing the two main "moderate" parties in the
North - his own Ulster Unionist Party and the nationalist SDLP - in the General Election.
He said that the "extremes" of Sinn Fein and Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists (DUP) - the two biggest parties in the last Assembly elections - had failed to deliver agreement and should be consigned to a period of opposition.
"I think it would be much better now to let the parties and the extremes have a bit of time in opposition where they can sort themselves out," he told BBC1's Breakfast With Frostprogramme.
"I think you could have a cross-community administration based on the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP. I think that trying to have a cross-community administration that brings in every party isn't going to work in the present circumstances.
"What we want to see in this election is whether people are prepared to vote for that or are they going to, as it were, endorse the extremes and reinforce stalemate."
SDLP leader Mark Durkan agreed that Sinn Fein and DUP could not produce a political settlement. "We will not get to destination progress with a Sinn Fein-DUP ticket," he said.
But Mr Durkan rejected calls by Mr Trimble for the SDLP to abandon inclusion.
Speaking on the same programme today he said: "The SDLP is clear. Exclusion doesn't work. We have to go forward on an inclusive basis. That is the Agreement way, and the SDLP makes no apology for standing by the Agreement."
Meanwhile, Sinn Fein's Conor Murphy hit back at Mr Trimble's call, claiming neither the Ulster Unionists nor SDLP delivered a way out of conflict in the decades they were in the ascendancy.
The Newry and Armagh MLA said: "Sinn Fein entering the political negotiations brought that dynamic. "It was a negotiation process involving republicans which ultimately succeeded after years of failed talks processes headed by the UUP and SDLP."
He added: "It should therefore come as no surprise that the UUP leader David Trimble is harking back to the days when the unionist establishment dictated the pace of political change and elements of the SDLP, blinded by party political interests, support this position.
"However, those days have gone, Sinn Fein have ensured that. "Mr Trimble needs to realise that the days of nationalists accepting the badge of second-class citizenship have gone and are not coming back."
PA