Sinn Fein has urged the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, to stand up to the No camp within his party and to persuade the Orange Order to talk to nationalist residents.
The party's president, Mr Gerry Adams, said that anti-agreement unionists had to recognise that change was inevitable. Speaking during a canvass of the villages of Crumlin and Glenavy in Co Antrim, he pointed to the UUP's institutional links with the Orange Order, saying: "Mr Trimble should use his influence to persuade the Orange Order to talk to nationalist residents."
He urged the UUP leader to talk to his own constituents on the Garvaghy Road in Portadown, Co Armagh, about next month's Drumcree parade, and to challenge anti-agreement unionists. "Mr Trimble's attempt to play to the No camp within his own broad constituency doesn't help anyone bring about a permanent peace settlement.
"Mr Trimble knows there is going to have to be change. He has said Yes once. He needs to practise it. He needs to say Yes to dialogue. He needs to say Yes to people in his own constituency being free from triumphalist marches. He needs to say Yes to building a future for all the people of this island as opposed to trying to out-Paisley Ian Paisley."
Mr Adams said that the unionists who had voted for the Belfast Agreement were voting for the future. "They know there is an honoured and honourable place for unionism in the new Ireland. Tribal unionism - the No camp - are against change, but they have to face up to the fact that change is coming."
Meanwhile, Republican Sinn Fein is calling on nationalists to boycott the Assembly election. The director of the party's "Boycott Stormont" campaign, Mr Deaglan O Donghaile, said: "Have the nationalist people of the Six Counties forgotten what Stormont rule really means? Even with nationalist representation, the unionist veto will continue to dictate the political direction of Stormont. A colonial parliament can only bring more oppression and murder and will continue to do what it has always done - serve British interests."
The Workers' Party chairman, Mr John Lowry, appealed to voters to vote for the "real politics" of left and right instead of the quasi-religious politics of nationalism and unionism. He said: "We have the opportunity to set about establishing a better Northern Ireland . . . Let's not let that opportunity be squandered."