Election Countdown/4 days to go: Sinn Féin's chief negotiator has no concerns about turnout, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
It's noon, and Martin McGuinness, purposefully stepping through the nationalist Greenvale estate in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, in his Mid-Ulster constituency, has a thought.
"I don't think there is a constituency in western Europe with a higher percentage turnout. Certainly Mid-Ulster had the highest turnout in the Westminster election."
Can anyone contradict? David Trimble may worry about rain and apathy keeping pro-Belfast Agreement unionists away from the polling booths, but Sinn Féin's chief negotiator has no such concerns here, where 16 or 17 out of 20 voters exercise their franchise.
The SDLP is trying to steal one of Sinn Féin's three seats in this constituency which, as they say up here, would be some gunk for Mr McGuinness and Sinn Féin. "They've no chance," says Mr McGuinness, not with any particular arrogance, but more with a go-look-at-the-figures attitude.
He took more than 50 per cent of votes in the Westminster election two years ago, while the party won 41 per cent of first preferences in the local elections on the same day. However the figures are viewed, the Sinn Féin vote appears, as he says, "rock-solid".
So here is a party on the march, hoping for gains in numerous constituencies, confident it will be the main nationalist party after the election, entitled to the deputy first minister position and perhaps even the first ministership.
But what sort of Northern Ireland will we have if Sinn Féin is in the nationalist ascendant?
I broach the funeral of Jean McConville in west Belfast, and how most republicans there effectively boycotted the final service for the mother of 10 put to death in a particularly callous and brutal fashion at Christmas 1972.
That boycott was probably caused by the lingering allegations that in some cackhanded way this emotionally distressed, recently widowed woman might have provided some local information to the British army, a claim emphatically rejected by her family.
Yet 31 years on and still local republicans wouldn't stand in compassionate solidarity with her family, at last able to grieve properly. Isn't that a cold, forbidding code to follow?
"Sinn Féin at no level discouraged anyone attending Jean McConville's funeral," says Mr McGuinness.
"I have said before that the IRA inflicted a great injustice on Jean McConville and her family. I would have railed against anyone preventing anyone attending the funeral,"
Surely, though, such a pitiless reaction to a "great injustice" itself damages the soul of the republican community? Is victory worth such hard-heartedness?
Mr McGuinness doesn't want to go into the specifics of Jean McConville's funeral but readily agrees that people in all strata of society, from each community and none, are wounded by "the bitter fallout" of the Troubles. He insists that republicans aren't just nursing their own sense of victimhood and grievance.
He reiterates that Sinn Féin is seriously addressing the issue of truth and reconciliation and is seeking a society that can banish some of the ghosts of the past. "This will be agonising for a lot of people, and it won't happen overnight, but it has to happen," he says.
Mr McGuinness reckons that on a good canvassing day he will knock on 1,000 doors. There are 300 doors in Greenvale, and over a few hours he calls to most of them. He gets a civil, often warm, reception in nearly every household. There are only two dissenters - literally.
One man quizzes him about IRA decommissioning. I miss some of the exchange and ask if he is seeking quicker IRA decommissioning. "He doesn't want any decommissioning," explains Mr McGuinness.
Another woman, whose husband is in prison on "Real IRA" charges, also gives him an earful. Mr McGuinness listens to these dissident republican complaints and offers some sympathy, but afterwards repeats that the overwhelming majority of republicans support the peace process - and so it certainly appears in Greenvale.
We drive back to the Sinn Féin constituency office in Cookstown, Mr McGuinness insisting I take the front seat beside his driver, Gerry McCartney.
"This way if a loyalist tries an assassination attempt he'll probably get you, not me," he says. A sense of humour about this sort of thing is always refreshing.
Lunch or a snack is not even contemplated as he finds time to answer a few questions before heading for the next canvassing stop, rural Drummullan, a few miles out the road in Co Derry.
The Sinn Féin vote has not plateaued, it is still rising, he says. He won't put a figure on how many seats the party will take, but it will be in excess of the current 18.
Targets for additional seats, or at the very least substantial vote gains, include West Tyrone, North, South and West Belfast, East Derry, South and North Antrim, South Down, Upper Bann and Foyle.
But even if Sinn Féin's march is ever onwards and upwards won't political collapse beckon if David Trimble and Yes unionism is hammered in the election?
And if that happens mustn't the IRA carry a fair portion of the blame for not being a tad more transparent in their dealings with Gen John de Chastelain?
Mr McGuinness repeats that he was "gobsmacked" that Ulster Unionists could not see the scale of what the IRA delivered on arms. He won't be any more forthcoming on the transparency matter, other than to say it is an issue to be discussed after the elections.
But with whom, if David Trimble is playing second fiddle to the DUP and the Jeffrey Donaldson wing of the UUP?
Mr McGuinness says he believes that Yes unionism will more than match the DUP in the election, and that the Rev Ian Paisley and his allies "will not be in a position to bring the agreement down".
"The hope is that the pro-agreement unionists will win the day and in the aftermath of the election we can get on with the business of restoring the institutions and fully implementing the Good Friday agreement," he says.