A second member of the Ulster Unionist Party announced today that he would challenge Mr David Trimble's leadership.
Portadown businessman Mr Robert Oliver, who is a treasurer of Mr Trimble's constituency association in Upper Bann, said he was putting his name forward at this Saturday's meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council.
Under Ulster Unionist Party rules, Mr Trimble has to seek the endorsement of the council for his leadership every year.
Coleraine marketing and management consultant Mr David Hoey last week announced he was running to force a change of leadership. Mr Oliver said he was entering the leadership race to win.
"The Ulster Unionist Party, if it is to have any sort of future, needs change and it needs it now," he said.
"We cannot allow things to continue any further in this direction, and that is why I will be asking those at our AGM on Saturday to help me bring the party back from the edge of the political abyss."
The UUP has suffered a series of setbacks over the past year, with in-fighting deepening divisions.
The party was also overtaken as the main unionist party and Northern Ireland's largest party in last November's Assembly Election by the rival Democratic Unionists led by the Reverend Ian Paisley.
There have also been a series of defections to the DUP in the Assembly and at a grassroots level.
After years of increasingly bitter clashes with supporters of Mr Trimble, Lagan Valley MP Mr Jeffrey Donaldson left in January to join the DUP.
Mr Donaldson's defection and those of two other Assembly members, Ms Arlene Foster and Ms Norah Beare, increased the DUP's tally of MLAs to 33 - nine more than the UUP, who now have the same number as Sinn Féin.