Preparing for government North and South was the theme of Sinn Féin's Ardfheis in Dublin this weekend.
It is an ambitious objective - more realistic, clearly, in Northern Ireland than in the Republic. But Sinn Féin believes the experience of government in a Northern Executive with the Democratic Unionist Party - if this emerges from Wednesday's assembly elections - will generate public support in the forthcoming general election, putting the prospect of sharing power in the Republic firmly on the agenda. Both alternative governments rule out his proposition.
For the first time before their ardfheis. the president, Gerry Adams, stated the words: "The war is over. Peace must be built". The message is welcome indeed and Sinn Féin's role in delivering it successfully must be acknowledged. Mr Adams promised "determined engagement with the range of policing . . to prevent attacks on the elderly, and to confront drug pushers, death riders, hate crime, sex offenders, domestic violence and sectarianism". He made the point that "Ian Paisley asked for this election. He has a duty to accept the outcome." Should Dr Paisley refuse to share power he would be left to explain why he undermined unionism's demand for devolution.
There was little or no support for critics of this course at the ardfheis. So the scene is set for a potentially positive outcome of this strand of Sinn Féin's strategy. Will it spill over to the Republic equally positively for the party in coming months and years?
Sinn Féin has an all-Ireland organisation, but it is stretched to sustain overlapping election campaigns in both jurisdictions. The northern campaign has diverted political energy from the general election. Some potentially sympathetic southern voters are probably alienated by the northern association, while many more are hostile to Sinn Féin's violent record or unconvinced by its new policies. Such scepticism probably explains the party's recent slackening off in the opinion polls compared to the surge of support several years ago which gave it over 10 per cent of first preferences. But it is too soon to conclude that the party peaked then and will not retrieve that level of support among southern voters.
Whether Sinn Féin can do so depends on the credibility of its policies, candidates and organisation. They are rarely assessed like other parties. On the evidence of this ardfheis, it is a left-wing nationalist party committed to egalitarian policies in health and education and taxation geared to those on lower and average incomes. It is pledged to redistribute the tax burden more fairly between these and the better-off and super-rich rather than increase it. It is willing to bargain about coalition-building after the election. It has young candidates and a more varied profile than before in many constituencies.
But the party still has a long way to go in explaining and justifying itself to voters anxious for social change but wary of destabilising the economic prosperity which makes it possible.