McAliskey may stand for election

IT APPEARS unlikely that either Sinn Fein or the SDLP will withdraw their candidates from the Mid-Ulster constituency in the British general election to give a "free run" to Ms Roisin McAliskey.

Ms McAliskey (25), who is seven months pregnant, is on remand in London's Holloway prison, and faces extradition proceedings on charges connected with the IRA bombing of a British army base in Osnabruck, Germany last June.

Her mother, Ms Bernadette McAliskey, a former MP, announced her daughter would stand if she was still in prison by the time nominations close and asked the other nationalist parties to withdraw their candidates.

The SDLP has indicated it will continue and although the move has created a major dilemma for Sinn Fein, the party is reluctant to stand down in an area where the sitting Democratic Unionist Party MP, the Rev Willie McCrea, is vulnerable because of changes in the constituency boundaries.

It is a difficult situation for Sinn Fein which first suggested a "unity candidate", and which would not relish standing against a prisoner. However, the McAliskey family did not consult either party and Ms McAliskey has been consistently disparaging of Sinn Fein's approach to the peace process, which would not enamour it to her daughter's campaign.

The SDLP's Mid-Ulster candidate, Mr Denis Haughey, said he understood Ms McAliskey's concern for her daughter but he added he had to be concerned "with all the victims of injustices and not just with one person, serious though her injustice is."

Mr Haughey did not, however, state categorically that he would be standing. That decision, he said, "would be for the party's executive to make and they are due to meet at the end of the month.

Nonetheless, the SDLP's former chairman, Mr Mark Durkan, repeated the party's categoric insistence that it will not make any electoral arrangements with Sinn Fe' in without an IRA ceasefire. "We can't opt out on the basis of one issue or one personality," he said.

Sinn Fein's Mr Martin McGuinness, the party's candidate in the constituency, was not available for comment yesterday. However, the party chairman in the North, Mr Gearoid O hEara, said in a statement that if it was a "realistic proposition" then the McAliskey family, Sinn Fein and the SDLP should discuss the issue fully.

Significantly, the statement said that "of course, the SDLP's attitude will have a direct bearing on Sinn Fein's decision. We will also have to take account of the central importance of Martin McGuinness to the process of negotiations for any new peace process."

A Sinn Fe' in source suggested it would have to agree with the SDLP's statement that it had to consider all cases and not just one. "It is a sad and tragic case but entirely different from the hunger strikes and Bobby Sands's election campaign," the source said, adding, "what is the point of us withdrawing if the SDLP remains?"

It would clearly be a major bonus for Mr McCrea if there were three non-unionist candidates and he said yesterday that he would take on "all comers".

The DUP's Mr Ian Paisley Jnr acknowledged that Ms McAliskey would stand a good chance if she were the only candidate but he said the move was tantamount to "blackmail" by the McAliskey family. The unionist community had to unite behind Mr McCrea, who had faced "communal sectarianism" by the "pan-nationalist front".