ANALYSIS:Peter Robinson and Gerry Adams could precipitate destabilising Assembly elections if they fail to reach an accommodation that transcends DUP and Sinn Féin self-interest, writes Gerry Moriarty
THE NORTHERN Ireland Executive didn't meet again yesterday. It is four months since Ministers last convened in collective session. Can you imagine any other government that could survive in such circumstances?
At certain levels in political circles there is an expectation that when Gerry Adams and Peter Robinson stare over the precipice they will pull back from the brink, cease their squabbling, devise a compromise package on the divisive issues - with some assistance from the British and Irish governments - and get back to properly functioning politics.
It mightn't be so easy. But we could - could, mind - be facing into premature Assembly elections sometime in the new year.
Robinson and Adams are digging in and neither man seems ready to move. It looks as if Taoiseach Brian Cowen and British prime minister Gordon Brown, currently taxed with more pressing issues, must redirect their gazes to the dreary steeples. Cowen is meeting Robinson and his deputy, Nigel Dodds, at Government Buildings today, where he is likely to urge the leaders to reach an accommodation with Sinn Féin before crisis strikes. Last June Sinn Féin threatened to block the installation of Robinson as First Minister in succession to Ian Paisley. That was sorted but the inside word at the time was that if key issues were not speedily resolved Adams, to quote one official, "would walk off the pitch with the ball" - ie lug Martin McGuinness and his fellow Ministers out of the Executive. Later in the summer Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin explicitly warned of such action.
That's because, as one close observer put it, at the moment Adams is 4-0 down to Robinson. Team Sinn Féin is four political goals behind team DUP.
Translated, the DUP is ahead in refusing to shift on Sinn Féin demands: devolving policing and justice, allowing an Irish language act, agreeing a stadium and conflict transformation centre for the Maze prison site, scrapping academic selection.
And it goes beyond these tangible issues. Adams and his senior colleagues repeatedly complain that the DUP is "not up for partnership and equality". Translated, the DUP is refusing to acknowledge the fact that the office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister is an office where Robinson and McGuinness are co-equals.
Moreover, in recent months mid-ranking DUP members have been sticking it into Adams in particular.
On one occasion four statements from four MLAs emerged from the DUP press office lampooning Adams, claiming that he was being politically marginalised, even attempting the old divide and conquer routine by suggesting differences between himself and McGuinness, and boasting that some of his pet projects such as the Irish language act were "binned". You could almost hear the crowing.
Such a stance, as some DUP people acknowledge, cheers up the party's significant fundamentalist base. Equally, though, it shakes the foundations holding up the powersharing structure.
Sinn Féin's response was to block meetings of the Executive, which it has been doing for the past four months. That's a long time. While Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey feels this could run beyond Christmas, the British and Irish governments fear we may be approaching breaking point. And that means premature elections, if Adams and Robinson can't resolve their differences.
Two weeks ago in Cleveland, Adams replayed a well-used line that some elements of the DUP are "bigots" who "don't want a Catholic about the place". Robinson lobbed back a grenade from his foxhole, saying Adams was a "sad spectacle" who should be "treated with pity rather than scorn".
Are there such people in the DUP? You betcha! as Sarah Palin would say. Progressive Unionist Party leader Dawn Purvis at her recent annual conference agreed with Adams, but added that there were Shinners who didn't want a "Brit or a British symbol about the place".
It is for Robinson and Adams to exercise leadership and keep these people in check, to allow space for the Northern Executive and Assembly to stabilise. Reheating the old religious and sectarian slogans doesn't assist that ambition.
As a possible glimmer of hope, it's worth mentioning that privately Sinn Féin warned that Robinson must "rein in" his MLAs spearheading the attacks on Adams.
His reaction to Adams's Cleveland speech was inevitable, but it was also noticeable that his was the only noteworthy DUP riposte, indicating that Robinson in the past month or so has put some form of restraining order - for the moment at least - on his, shall we say, less strategically-minded MLAs.
Dublin, London and Washington believe that Adams has "right on his side" as the St Andrews Agreement promised the devolution of policing and justice. The DUP quote the letter of the law by saying that they never signed up to the agreement. The governments and Sinn Féin reply that without the agreement, Adams and McGuinness would not have got policing over the line, there would be no administration at Stormont, and that Paisley and Robinson realise this.
Robinson and Adams have big decisions to make. The First Minister knows that powersharing isn't the same as a World Cup qualifier and that if he does not make some concessions to Sinn Féin, then Adams is likely to quit the pitch, triggering Assembly elections. Some informed observers say the reason Robinson hasn't budged is because the hardline rump won't let him.
Here the governments wonder and worry where his deputy, Dodds, is positioned. Another reason argued for holding fast is that striking a deal with Adams would play into the hands of anti-agreement MEP Jim Allister, whom Robinson and other DUP politicians fear, possibly more than they should.
"Going into elections 4-0 up over Adams would hardly be to Robinson's disadvantage," one insider pointed out.
If elections are precipitated, both leaders probably will depend on the bulk of the electorate retreating to traditional unionist and republican corners to ensure the DUP and Sinn Féin remain in the ascendant. But this stand-off, which ordinary people ignore, is happening at a time when people are more concerned with the pound in their pockets than unionist or republican ideology. So, this would be a risk and a big call for the two politicians, perhaps more so for the Sinn Féin leader
Dublin and London are hoping the two men will think beyond their own strategic self-interest, conscious that what is at stake here is so fragile that it requires a response over and above local politics.
"Elections! Sure, fine, but to what?" is the question Cowen and Brown are likely to put to Robinson and Adams.
More stand-offs, more sectarian posturing, more encouragement for the hard unionist right and the violent republican dissidents, more undermining of a project that is far from assured.
• Gerry Moriarty is Northern Editor of The Irish Times