The DUP's two Ministers will today resign from the North's Executive after a motion to exclude Sinn Fein from government failed in the Assembly.
The Regional Development Minister, Mr Peter Robinson, and the Social Development Minister, Mr Nigel Dodds, had pledged to leave the Executive if their party's motion did not receive 60 per cent unionist support in the chamber.
Four UUP Assembly members voted for the motion - Ms Pauline Armitage, Mr Roy Beggs jnr, Mr Derek Hussey, and Mr Peter Weir. But the rest did not vote. The party leader, Mr David Trimble, had said the motion was deliberately aimed at heightening tension during the Drumcree disturbances.
Mr Robinson and Mr Dodds will be replaced by two other DUP Assembly members, who will be formally named at a press conference at Stormont this afternoon.
The DUP motion was always doomed to failure because it needed cross-community support in the Assembly and the SDLP was firmly opposed to it.
After the five-hour debate last night the DUP claimed a moral victory because a majority of unionist Assembly members - 32 out of 58 - had voted for the motion.
Mr Dodds said support "was seeping and will continue to seep from David Trimble as he ditches his electoral pledges". Only 46 of the 108 MLAs voted. Nine nationalists and five non-aligned Alliance Party members opposed it.
The majority of UUP, Sinn Fein and SDLP members were absent for most of the debate.
Proposing the motion, the Rev Ian Paisley said that allowing Sinn Fein to remain in government was supporting fascism. He said the Provisional IRA was still involved in violence and listed the murder of Mr Ed McCoy in May, an explosion in west Belfast a fortnight ago, and continuing "punishment" attacks as evidence. "It is a ludicrous situation to have two IRA/Sinn Fein Ministers by day while the IRA terrorises and kills by night.
"Destruction of this province is at stake. It is the triumph of fascism which is the main objective. It is the burial of democracy which is being sought."
Sinn Fein accused Dr Paisley of living in the past and claimed the motion could inflame loyalists on the streets to attack nationalists during the marching season.
The party's vice-president, Mr Pat Doherty, accused the DUP of double standards because its members sat on Assembly committees and local councils and went on foreign trips with Sinn Fein.
"Isn't that pure, blatant and unadulterated hypocrisy?" he asked.
Mr Trimble described the DUP motion as irresponsible. "The DUP don't care about the situation. What contribution are they making to maintain peace and calm in society?" Referring to Sinn Fein, he added: "`Just because people have a past doesn't mean they cannot have a future."
Mr Alban Maginness of the SDLP dismissed the exclusion motion as "contemptible". He accused the DUP of enjoying the benefits of office while pretending not to be part of the administration. He claimed the public would suffer while the DUP "played musical chairs" with its two ministerial positions.
Speaking for the motion the UK Unionist leader, Mr Bob McCartney, said the Assembly had become "in democratic terms a slum".
Mr Peter Weir said: "I yearn for peace but it will not be peace at any price, it will not be the price of putting Sinn Fein/IRA into government."
Ms Armitage said she was voting for the motion as a "modest, old unionist" whose conscience would not allow her to support the continuation of Sinn Fein Ministers in the Executive.
"Today we have a situation where we are in government with Sinn Fein and not one gun, not one bullet, not one ounce of Semtex has been destroyed."
The Alliance deputy leader, Mr Seamus Close, said the DUP's plan to rotate Ministers was comical. "With Peter in and Peter out, Nigel in and Nigel out, they do the hokey-cokey and they change them around, that's what it's all about," he said.
The Northern Ireland Unionist Party leader, Mr Cedric Wilson, condemned the "corruption" of the political process by Sinn Fein's involvement in the Executive.
Mr David Ervine of the Progressive Unionist Party, the UVF's political wing, said he had suffered during the Troubles but society had to move on.
Ms Monica McWilliams of the Women's Coalition said the public views of some anti-agreement unionists contradicted their private contacts with Sinn Fein.