Today will mark a defining moment for unionism on this island when the Ulster Unionist Council meets to decide whether Mr David Trimble or Mr Jeffrey Donaldson should chart the road map for the future of Northern Ireland.
At stake is not just the leadership of the main unionist party but the political process on which the British and Irish governments, nationalists, republicans and unionists embarked when the Belfast Agreement was ratified in concurrent referendums more than five years ago. A critical juncture has been reached.
Mr Donaldson, the Lagan Valley MP, has put forward a motion calling on the UUC to reject the Joint Declaration produced by the two governments as the basis for the restoration of the Northern Assembly. He maintains that a fundamental unionist principle will be breached by allowing Dublin, through the proposed international monitoring body, to have a say in the internal affairs of the Assembly. He holds that only one-third of unionism is represented at the negotiating table. He says that he will consider his position if the UUC vote goes against him. And he has committed himself to involving the Democratic Unionist Party in the process of renegotiating the Agreement.
The broad family of unionism would do well to remember, however, that Mr Donaldson is trying to have it both ways. He is anti-Agreement. The Joint Declaration from the two governments came within a whisker of forcing a commitment from the IRA to end all paramilitary activity and bring a closure to the conflict. And the Irish and British governments stood four square behind Mr Trimble in the decision to reject the IRA's clarifications of its position. The international monitoring body, comprising American as well as Irish representatives, will enable an independent determination to be made as to whether a party associated with a paramilitary organisation is in breach of the principle of operating by exclusively peaceful means. It may be deemed to interfere with the three-stranded process but it is opposed by Sinn Féin.
Mr Donaldson is seeking to present himself - with the DUP's Mr Peter Robinson - as the leader of middle-ground unionists. Yet there is little evidence to suggest he has reconciled himself to any accommodation with nationalists in Northern Ireland, less still the new dispensation heralded in the Belfast Agreement.
For all his failings, Mr Trimble has led unionism towards an historic compromise with nationalism in very difficult circumstances. He has brought the IRA closer to dealing with the issue of decommissioning. He is the only unionist leader committed wholeheartedly to the peace process and the political process. His leadership has convinced nationalism to change Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution. The UUC vote will have a momentous impact on political developments on this island for the foreseeable future. Mr Donaldson is proposing the wrong motion on the wrong issue at the wrong time.